Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Effectiveness and Economic Viability of Forest Certification: A Systematic Review

In the face of accelerating forest degradation and deforestation, forest certification emerged in the early 1990s as a voluntary and market-based mechanism to promote environmentally appropriate, socially beneficial, and economically viable management of the world’s forests. A key goal of forest certification is to reduce forest degradation and deforestation while enhancing forest enterprises’ economic viability. However, whether forest certification contributes to meeting such goals is unclear. We conducted a systematic literature review on such impacts, reviewing empirical studies published between 1993 and 2021 regarding the impact of forest certification on forest degradation, deforestation, and economic viability. Drawing on 98 empirical studies, we analyzed these impacts and provide an overview of the studies’ findings in terms of geographical distribution, indicators considered, and the certification schemes assessed. We found that the impact of forest certification on deforestation has been specifically understudied (n = 11) compared to forest degradation (n = 42) and economic viability (n = 45). On deforestation, studies have focused on Africa (45%) and South America (36%); on forest degradation, studies have focused on Europe (40%) and Asia (20%); on economic viability, studies have focused on Asia (33%), Europe (33%) and South America (20%). We found positive-neutral (54%; 46%) impacts on deforestation, positive-neutral-mixed (70%; 21%; 9%) impacts on forest degradation and positive-negative-mixed (50%; 33%; 17%) impacts on economic viability. We did not find clear evidence that impact is linked to a specific region or certification scheme. However, scarce evidence on the impacts of the Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification (PEFC), the application of various methods, and site-specific indicators in the individual studies challenge such comparison and hamper the generalization of findings. This systematic review provides an overview of the state-of-the-art research on the effectiveness and economic viability of forest certification, evaluates and discusses the current evidence base, and concludes with future research lines.
Correlation between Intestinal Microflora in Irritable Bowel Syndrome and Severity

Background Irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) is a common chronic functional gastrointestinal disease accompanied by changes in intestinal microecology. This study investigated the relationship between gut microbiota and disease severity in patients with irritable bowel syndrome (IBS). Methods An observational study was performed on 60 IBS patients (study group) and 20 healthy controls admitted to our hospital from January 2013 to December 2014. Fecal samples were taken after admission to measure intestinal flora including Bifidobacterium, Lactobacillus, Enterobacter, and Enterococcus, and patient blood was collected to determine serum D-lactate and diamine oxidase (DAO) levels. The gut microbiota and serum markers of the two groups were analyzed. The correlation of gut microbiota index levels and serum markers with disease severity, as well as the correlation between gut microbiota index levels and serum markers, were analyzed. Results The levels of intestinal Lactobacillus and Bifidobacterium were lower, while the levels of Enterococcus and Enterobacter and serum D-lactate were higher in the study group than those in the control group. The levels of intestinal Lactobacillus and Bifidobacterium were lower, while the levels of Enterococcus and Enterobacter, serum D-lactate, and DAO were higher in patients with moderate IBS than those in patients with mild IBS. The levels of intestinal Lactobacillus and Bifidobacterium were lower in patients with severe IBS than those with moderate IBS, while the levels of Enterococcus and Enterobacter, serum D-lactate, and DAO were higher in patients with severe IBS. There was a significant negative correlation between the levels of Lactobacillus and Bifidobacterium and disease severity and a significant positive correlation between the levels of Enterococcus and Enterobacter, D-lactate, and DAO and disease severity. There was a significant negative correlation between the levels of Lactobacillus and Bifidobacterium and serum D-lactate and DAO, while there was a significant positive correlation between the levels of Enterococcus and Enterobacter and serum D-lactate and DAO (P < 0.05). Conclusion Intestinal flora, D-lactate, and DAO were abnormal in IBS patients, and intestinal flora was closely correlated with disease severity, D-lactate, and DAO levels.
Fertility after Cancer: Risks and Successes

Simple Summary Approximately one million new cases of cancer are diagnosed in women of reproductive age every year. In the last few decades, advances in early diagnosis and treatment have improved the survival rate. However, the adverse effects of anticancer therapy on the ovaries and uterus have a significant impact on future fertility and may affect the quality of life of cancer survivors. Unfortunately, evidence about the trend of ovarian reserve loss over time is insufficient for predicting the duration of the fertile period. Currently, impaired fertility in cancer survivors is a growing issue that is complicated by an increasing number of women delaying childbearing. This review focuses on the detrimental effects of chemotherapy, radiotherapy, and surgery on reproductive functions and describes the mechanisms causing reduced fertility in cancer survivors. Moreover, in this review, the available fertility preservation strategies to guarantee the chance of motherhood in cancer survivors are illustrated. Abstract The incidence of cancer in reproductive-aged women is 7%, but, despite the increased number of cancer cases, advances in early diagnosis and treatment have raised the survival rate. Furthermore, in the last four decades, there has been a rising trend of delaying childbearing. There has been an increasing number of couples referred to Reproductive Medicine Centers for infertility problems after one partner has been treated for cancer. In these cases, the main cause of reduced fertility derives from treatments. In this review, we describe the effects and the risks of chemotherapy, radiotherapy, and surgery in women with cancer, and we will focus on available fertility preservation techniques and their efficacy in terms of success in pregnancy and live birth rates.
Temperature sensing during remote cargo release using polymer capsules modified with gold nanoparticles and nanodiamonds

Accurate thermal monitoring is essential tool for photothermal therapy or for application light-responsive drug delivery platforms, because overheating of living cells is related with unwanted side effects in surrounding tissues. In this work, we investigated a multifunctional polymer capsule embedded with nitrogen vacancies (NV) centers as nanothermometers and gold (Au) nanoparticles (NPs) as heating agents to perform of laser-induced release of bioactive compounds from the carriers with a simultaneous temperature measurements inside living cells.
Phenotypic Adaptation to Antiseptics and Effects on Biofilm Formation Capacity and Antibiotic Resistance in Clinical Isolates of Early Colonizers in Dental Plaque

Despite the wide-spread use of antiseptics in dental practice and oral care products, there is little public awareness of potential risks associated with antiseptic resistance and potentially concomitant cross-resistance. Therefore, the aim of this study was to investigate potential phenotypic adaptation in 177 clinical isolates of early colonizers of dental plaque (Streptococcus, Actinomyces, Rothia and Veillonella spp.) upon repeated exposure to subinhibitory concentrations of chlorhexidine digluconate (CHX) or cetylpyridinium chloride (CPC) over 10 passages using a modified microdilution method. Stability of phenotypic adaptation was re-evaluated after culture in antiseptic-free nutrient broth for 24 or 72 h. Strains showing 8-fold minimal inhibitory concentration (MIC)-increase were further examined regarding their biofilm formation capacity, phenotypic antibiotic resistance and presence of antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs). Eight-fold MIC-increases to CHX were detected in four Streptococcus isolates. These strains mostly exhibited significantly increased biofilm formation capacity compared to their respective wild-type strains. Phenotypic antibiotic resistance was detected to tetracycline and erythromycin, consistent with the detected ARGs. In conclusion, this study shows that clinical isolates of early colonizers of dental plaque can phenotypically adapt toward antiseptics such as CHX upon repeated exposure. The underlying mechanisms at genomic and transcriptomic levels need to be investigated in future studies.
SELF-ASSESSMENT OF OPERATING THEATRE NURSE COMPETENCE IN PERIOPERATIVE CARE

Assessment of competence level of operating theatre nurses (OTN) has a significant role in ensuring patient safety, continuity of perioperative care, and positive care environment, allowing to identify shortcomings and address them. The competence level describes quantitatively the competence in perioperative care — a set of skills, attitudes, and knowledge required for effective and safe perioperative care. A simple method to assess the competence level is a self-assessment scale; however, this method has not been used in Latvia to establish the OTN competence levelThe goal of this work is to determine the perceived level of competence in the perioperative care of OTN in a multi-profile hospital in Latvia. For this purpose, a modified perioperative competence self-assessment scale was used, based on Gillespie’s (2012) Perceived Perioperative Competence Scale-Revised (PPCS-R). The results show that OTN have a high perceived level of competence. However, the leadership subscale (which includes coordination and management) displayed lower levels of perceived competence, which shows the insufficiency of training. The results also show that certified OTN, those with more work experience, and OTN with a Bachelor’s degree have a higher perceived competence level. The scale adapted to Latvian exhibits equally good internal consistency as other versions of PPCS-R.
A framework to evaluate sustainable construction principles in government building projects: the case of Jordan

PurposeThis study aimed to provide a framework that includes the principles of sustainable construction to evaluate their application in the construction of government building projects in various environmental, economic, and social aspects distributed over the project phases throughout its life cycle.Design/methodology/approachQualitative methods from literature review and analysis of sustainability assessment tools were used to design the framework. The designed framework included six main categories, comprising 19 indicators that include sustainable building principles to assess application levels in government construction projects. It was used to evaluate applying sustainability practices in Jordanian government construction projects. 133 questionnaires were distributed to a convenience sample of three government institutions concerned with the design, implementation, and management of government buildings in Jordan.FindingsAfter collecting the quantitative data, the results showed that there is an application of six sustainability principles during the initial planning, analysis, and design stages of Jordanian government construction projects. The results focused on the application levels in social sustainability principles versus environmental and economical, especially in the operating stages during the project life cycle.Originality/valueThis study contributes by providing a tool to evaluate the sustainability of government construction projects and increase the efficiency and effectiveness of these types of buildings in both the short and long term by making them more sustainable. Subsequently, recommendations are made on reorienting government construction projects toward a sustainable building approach.
Systematic Literature Review on Indicators Use in Safety Management Practices among Utility Industries

Background: Workers in utility industries are exposed to occupational accidents due to inadequate safety management systems. Accordingly, it is necessary to characterize and compare the available literature on indicators used in safety management practices in the utility industries. Methods: The systematic literature review was based on the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-analysis statement. This study considered 25 related studies from Web of Science and Scopus databases. Results: Further review of these articles resulted in three mains performance indicators; namely, driven leading indicators, observant leading indicators, and lagging indicators consisting of 15 sub-indicators. Conclusions: Future studies should consider researching a more comprehensive range of utility industries, measuring subjective and objective indicators, integrating risk management into safety management practices, and validating the influence of leading indicators on safety outcomes. Further, researchers recommend including accidents, fatalities, lost time injuries, and near misses in safety outcomes.
Generative and discriminative infinite restricted Boltzmann machine training

As one of the essential deep learning models, a restricted Boltzmann machine (RBM) is a commonly used generative training model. By adaptively growing the size of the hidden units, infinite RBM (IRBM) is obtained, which possesses an excellent property of automatically choosing the hidden layer size depending on a specific task. An IRBM presents a competitive generative capability with the traditional RBM. First, a generative model called Gaussian IRBM (GIRBM) is proposed to deal with practical scenarios from the perspective of data discretization. Subsequently, a discriminative IRBM (DIRBM) and a discriminative GIRBM (DGIRBM) are established to solve classification problems by attaching extra‐label units next to the input layer. They are motivated by the fact that a discriminative variant of an RBM can complete an individual framework for classification with better performance than some standard classifiers. Remarkably, the proposed models retain both generative and discriminative properties synchronously, that is, they can reconstruct data effectively and be established in considerable self‐contained classifiers. The experimental results on image classification (both large and small), text identification, and facial recognition (both clean and noisy) reflect that a DIRBM and a DGIRBM are superior to some state‐of‐the‐art RBM models in terms of the reconstruction error and the classification accuracy. Intuitively, they require models to avoid utilizing more hidden units than needed when confronted with various sizes of data, prioritizing smaller networks. In addition, the proposed models behave more robustly than other classic classifiers when dealing with noisy facial recognition.
Using gamification to enhance clinical trial start-up activities

Abstract Background: The Trial Innovation Network (TIN) is a collaborative initiative within the National Center for Advancing Translational Science (NCATS) Clinical and Translational Science Awards (CTSA) Program. To improve and innovate the conduct of clinical trials, it is exploring the uses of gamification to better engage the trial workforce and improve the efficiencies of trial activities. The gamification structures described in this article are part of a TIN website gamification toolkit, available online to the clinical trial scientific community. Methods: The game designers used existing electronic trial platforms to gamify the tasks required to meet trial start-up timelines to create friendly competitions. Key indicators and familiar metrics were mapped to scoreboards. Webinars were organized to share and applaud trial and game performance. Results: Game scores were significantly associated with an increase in achieving start-up milestones in activation, institutional review board (IRB) submission, and IRB approval times, indicating the probability of completing site activation faster by using games. Overall game enjoyment and feelings that the game did not apply too much pressure appeared to be an important moderator of performance in one trial but had little effect on performance in a second. Conclusion: This retrospective examination of available data from gaming experiences may be a first-of-kind use in clinical trials. There are signals that gaming may accelerate performance and increase enjoyment during the start-up phase of a trial. Isolating the effect of gamification on trial outcomes will depend on a larger sampling from future trials, using well-defined, hypothesis-driven statistical analysis plans.
Effect of MnOx/α-Fe2O3 Prepared from Goethite on Selective Catalytic Reduction of NO with NH3

A low-cost goethite and manganese acetate were used to prepare a MnOx/α-Fe2O3 composite catalyst by simple impregnation method for novel high-efficiency selective catalytic reduction (SCR) of NO with NH3, and its denitration performance of composite catalyst under different conditions was investigated in a thermal fixed-bed catalytic reaction system. The results showed that MnOx/α-Fe2O3 with Mn/Fe molar ratio of 0.1 and calcination temperature of 400 °C had the best low-temperature catalytic activity and wider reaction temperature window compared with α-Fe2O3. It achieved over 90% NO conversion efficiency with a space velocity of 72,000 h−1 at 200~350 °C and possessed a good resistance of H2O and SO2. Characterization by XRD, BET, H2-TPR, and NH3-TPD revealed that the main reason for the high catalytic activity of MnOx(0.1)/α-Fe2O3(400) was that the addition of Mn changed phase types of catalyst and valence composition of Fe, resulting in a larger specific surface area, more acidic sites, and higher redox performance.
Tunable photonic crystal switch based on ring resonators with improved crosstalk and Q-factor

In this paper, the proposed switch of T-type based on photonic crystal ring resonator has been studied. The proposed structure is composed of two waveguides, between them the photonic crystal ring resonator is placed. Our structure can switch two wavelengths together following an external effect. The proposed design has a simple geometric shape, therefore it is capable to realize optical switch applicable to photonic integrated circuits. The parameters that can characterized the performance of optical device are quality factor, crosswalk and foot print. The values of crosstalk, quality factor and footprint that have been obtained are – 41.5db, 330 and 89.38 μm2, respectively, which are superior to earlier reported values. The finite different time domain (FDTD) and plane wave extended (PWE) methods are used to calculate the outputs spectrum and band gap, respectively.
An Optimal Linear Quadratic Regulator in Closed Loop with Boost Converter for Current Photovoltaic Application

In this paper, a steady-state output power oscillation problem is overcome using the indirect control mode based-Perturb and Observe (P&O) implementation algorithm. This can be ensured through controlling the duty cycle input of the DC-DC boost converter using the proposed Linear Quadratic Regulator (LQR) controller. Their parameters are optimized using the Grasshopper Optimization Algorithm (GOA) where a good tracking behavior of a desired Maximum Power Point (MPP) can be guaranteed for various sudden changes in weather conditions such as absolute temperature and solar irradiance. The desired performances and robustness of the closed-loop system can be achieved by the two following stages. In the first stage, the standard P&O algorithm based-direct control mode generates a reference current perturbation using both existing electrical power and measured PV current. Accordingly, a current error perturbation is provided through the discrepancy between reference and measured currents. In the second stage, the previous current error provided in the inner control-loop is mitigated as much as possible using the stabilized LQR controller. The current control-loop problem is addressed with a detailed analysis technique of averaging and linearization, in which the linearization of actual PV-boost converter system around the desired MPP allows determining the corresponding linear plant-model. This leads to well optimize the LQR controller parameters. The performance and robustness provided by the P&O algorithm based-indirect duty cycle control are shown for sudden changes in solar irradiance and absolute temperature as well as in a wide variation of the resistive load.
Life-Cycle Benefits of Recycled Material in Highway Construction

The use of recycled materials in highway construction can achieve significant benefits affecting the triple bottom line (environment, prosperity, and society). Although state departments of transportation have been at the forefront of introducing recycled materials, they have been unable to clearly convey the benefits in a quantitative and transparent manner using easily understood metrics. Information on sustainability assessment characteristics—that is, energy and water consumption—is lacking. To determine the benefits of using recycled materials for six member state departments of transportation in a pooled fund, the Recycled Materials Resource Center at the University of Wisconsin–Madison was tasked with a project that would quantify the environmental and economic life-cycle benefits associated with the incorporation of recycled materials and industrial by-products in highway construction. An analysis of the environmental benefits (i.e., carbon dioxide emissions, energy consumption, and water consumption) associated with the substitution of recycled materials for conventional virgin materials in highway construction was conducted using the pavement life-cycle assessment tool for environmental and economic effects, a tool developed with the sponsorship of the Recycled Materials Resource Center. An economic impact analysis was conducted by comparing the unit prices of virgin and recycled materials. The analysis showed significant environmental and economic savings in all member states. Total environmental savings from use of recycled materials were approximately equal to the energy consumption of 110,000 U.S. households per year, 9,300 bathtubs of water, and the carbon dioxide emissions produced by 58,000 cars per year. Total systemwide economic savings from use of recycled materials was estimated to be $62.5 million.
Using AI as a support tool for bridging construction informal sector mechanisms to sustainable development requirements

ABSTRACT Over 85% of Cameroonians use building informal sector mechanisms which involve a disorganized and varied workforce, types and qualities of materials from various origins with unclear supply networks, supported by a wide range of funding sources. Although previous work enabled us to master these mechanisms, their complexity is accentuated by sustainable development requirements and sanitary measures. Sustainability concept deals with fields to respond to social, economic and environmental challenges but its operationality in building encounters many difficulties due to informal mechanisms complexity. Dealing with this environment recommend taking advantage of Building Information Modeling, especially the assets of artificial intelligence (AI) to get appropriate, rapid, and diversified assistance. In this paper, we propose a concept of intelligent building sites management combining knowledge base, information system capitalizing on previous best practices and achievements to organize several construction sites in real-time with all requirements including those of SD goals and covid-19.