Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Technologies for the Instrumental Evaluation of Physical Function in Persons Affected by Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease: A Systematic Review

Several systems, sensors, and devices are now available for the instrumental evaluation of physical function in persons with Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD). We aimed to systematically review the literature about such technologies. The literature search was conducted in all major scientific databases, including articles published between January 2001 and April 2022. Studies reporting measures derived from the instrumental assessment of physical function in individuals with COPD were included and were divided into application and validation studies. The quality of validation studies was assessed with the Consensus-based Standards for the selection of health Measurement Instruments (COSMIN) risk of bias tool. From 8752 articles retrieved, 21 application and 4 validation studies were included in the systematic review. Most application studies employed accelerometers, gait analysis systems, instrumented mattresses, or force plates to evaluate walking. Surface electro-myography or near-infrared spectroscopy were employed in four studies. Validation studies were heterogeneous and presented a risk of bias ranging from inadequate to doubtful. A variety of data regarding physical function can be retrieved from technologies used in COPD studies. However, a general lack of standardization and limitations in study design and sample size hinder the implementation of the instrumental evaluation of function in clinical practice.
The Method of Simulated Scores for Estimating Multinormal Regression Models with Missing Values

Given a set of continuous variables with missing data, we prove in this paper that the iterative application of a simple “least-squares estimation/multivariate normal simulation” procedure produces an efficient parameters estimator. There are two main assumptions behind our proof: (1) the missing data mechanism is ignorable; (2) the data generating process is a multivariate normal linear regression. Disentangling the iterative procedure and its convergence conditions, we show that the estimator is a “method of simulated scores” (a particular case of McFadden’s “method of simulated moments”), thus equivalent to maximum likelihood if the number of replications is conveniently large. We thus provide a non-Bayesian re-interpretation of the estimation/simulation problem. The computational procedure is obtained introducing a simple modification into existing algorithms. Its software implementation is straightforward (few simple statements in any programming language) and easily applicable to datasets with large number of variables.
Theory of group representations and applications

The material collected in this book originated from lectures given by authors over many years in Warsaw, Trieste, Schladming, Istanbul, Goteborg and Boulder. There is no other comparable book on group representations, neither in mathematical nor in physical literature and it is hoped that this book will prove to be useful in many areas of research. It is highly recommended as a textbook for an advanced course in mathematical physics on Lie algebras, Lie groups and their representations.
A Critical Review of the Use of Graphene-Based Gas Sensors

The employment of graphene for multifunctional uses has been a cornerstone in sensing technology. Due to its excellent electrochemical properties, graphene has been used in its pure and composite forms to detect target molecules over a wide range of surfaces. The adsorption process on the graphene-based sensors has been studied in terms of the change in resistance and capacitance values for various industrial and environmental applications. This paper highlights the performance of graphene-based sensors for detecting different kinds of domestic and industrial gases. These graphene-based gas sensors have achieved enhanced output in terms of sensitivity and working range due to specific experimental parameters, such as elevated temperature, presence of particular gas-specific layers and integration with specific nanomaterials that assist with the adsorption of gases. The presented research work has been classified based on the physical nature of graphene used in conjugation with other processed materials. The detection of five different types of gases, including carbon dioxide (CO2), ammonia (NH3), hydrogen sulphide (H2S), nitrogen dioxide (NO2) and ethanol (C2H5OH) has been shown in the paper. The challenges of the current graphene-based gas sensors and their possible remedies have also been showcased in the paper.
Space-dependent variable-order time-fractional wave equation: Existence and uniqueness of its weak solution

Abstract The investigation of an initial-boundary value problem for a fractional wave equation with space-dependent variable-order wherein the coeﬃcients have a dependency on the spatial and time variables is the concern of this work. This type of variable-order fractional diﬀerential operator originates in the modelling of viscoelastic materials. The global in time existence of a unique weak solution to the model problem has been proved under appropriate conditions on the data. Rothe’s time discretization method is applied to achieve that purpose.
PII: S1010-7940(01)00725-4

Objective: Atrial ®brillation (AF) is common after coronary artery bypass graft (CABG) surgery. Atrial ischaemia due to diseased atrioventricular (AV) and sinoatrial (SA) arteries has been proposed as a cause of AF post-CABG. We examined if the presence of diseased nodal arteries was a signi®cant predictor of the development of AF post-CABG. Methods: 100 consecutive cases (AF post-CABG) were compared to 100 consecutive controls (No AF post-CABG) with respect to pre-operative angiographic evidence of diseased nodal arteries. Cases and controls identi®ed from the Society of Thoracic Surgeons database underwent detailed chart reviews to obtain data on potential risk factors. Patients were excluded if they were undergoing anything but a routine CABG procedure, were older than 65 years, or had previous AF. All angiograms were reviewed by a single radiologist blinded to outcome. The effect of grafting diseased nodal arteries on the development of AF post-CABG was also measured. A multiple logistic regression model was utilized to measure the effect of disease in each artery on the development of AF post-CABG. Results: Cases and controls were comparable regarding potential risk factors, with the exception that the AF group was older than the non-AF group. Signi®cant AV artery disease was detected in 78 cases compared to 74 controls (adjusted odds ratio (OR) OR  1:04, CI, 0.51±2.12, P  0:82). Signi®cant SA artery disease was detected in 34 cases compared to 21 controls (adjusted OR  2:093, CI: 1.06±4.09, P  0:03). Six of ten patients having revascularization of their SA nodal artery developed AF versus 28 of 45 of those who did not (OR  0:91, CI: 0.18±5.06, P  0:58). Forty-eight of 87 patients having revasacularization of their AV nodal artery developed AF versus 30 of 65 of those who did not (OR  1:44, CI: 0.72±2.88, P  0:27). Conclusion: The presence of a diseased SA artery is signi®cantly associated with AF post-CABG. Such association may be used to identify a subset of patients who might be targeted with prophylaxis. q 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.
Book Review: Platforms and Cultural Production

Internet. First edition. FSG Originals, Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Joseph D (2018) The Time Canada Wanted its Own Internet Because it Thought the US Would Mess it up. Available at: https://www.vice. com/en/article/wjbbzq/canada-wanted-its-own-internet-inthe-70s Lauer J and Lipartito K (eds) (2021) Surveillance capitalism in America. 1st edition. University of Pennsylvania Press. Mailland J and Driscoll K (2017) Minitel: Welcome to the Internet. MIT Press. Meehan ER (2006) Media and cultural studies. In: Kellner D and DurhamMG (eds). Gendering the Commodity Audience: Critical Media Research, Feminism, and Political Economy. Blackwell Publishing Ltd. Nieborg DB and Poell T (2018) The platformization of cultural production: Theorizing the contingent cultural commodity. New Media & Society 20. doi: 10.1177/1461444818769694. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1177/1461444818769694 Roderick (2017) P&G: ‘Media Buying Is Antiquated and Not Built for the Tech Revolution’. Marketing Week. Available at: https://www.marketingweek. com/pg-media-buying/ Venkatadri G, Sapiezynski P, Redmiles EM, et al. (2019) Auditing offline data brokers via facebook’s advertising platform. In: The World Wide Web Conference 1920–1930, 13 May 2019, pp. 1920–1930. DOI: 10.1145/3308558.3313666. Vizard S (2018) Why Google And Facebook Should Heed Unilever’s Warnings. Marketing Week, https://www.marketingweek. com/google-facebook-heed-unilever-warnings/ Zuboff S (2019) The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power. Profile Books.
Context-Aware Restoration of Noisy Fingerprints

The literature on fingerprint restoration algorithms firmly advocates exploiting contextual information, such as ridge orientation field, ridge spacing, and ridge frequency, to recover ridge details in fingerprint regions with poor quality ridge structure. However, most state-of-the-art convolutional neural network based fingerprint restoration models exploit spatial context only through convolution operations. Motivated by this observation, this article introduces a novel context-aware fingerprint restoration model: context-aware GAN (CA-GAN). CA-GAN is explicitly regularized to learn spatial context by ensuring that the model not only performs fingerprint restoration but also accurately predicts the correct spatial arrangement of randomly arranged fingerprint patches. Experimental results establish better fingerprint restoration ability of CA-GAN compared to the state-of-the-art.
The Role of Human Resources in Fostering the Economic Growth of the Botubarani Beach Management: A Case Study in Gorontalo, Indonesia

This study examines how HR quality strategies contribute to increased economic growth in Botubarani Village, Kabila Bone District, Bone Bolango Regency, especially in coastal management communities. The Darwis group (a group that promotes tourism awareness), the Conservation group, and the Pokmaswas group (a group that oversees fisheries) were the primary informants in this study. The first sub-focus was intellectual quality (knowledge and abilities), and the second was education. This research is a type of phenomenological research with a qualitative approach. This research is expected to contribute to the development of science, especially in the field of human resource management studies. The research's contribution can take the shape of ideas on the concept of the quality of human resources, particularly for the coastal management community of Botubarani village, so that it affects the community's economic development. This study concludes that the human resources of beach managers in Botubarani village, Kabila Bone sub-district, are quite good. However, there are still beach managers who have not adopted technology and whose knowledge of the use of foreign languages is still limited, along with their educational level.
Multi-, Inter-, and Transdisciplinarity within the Public Health Workforce: A Scoping Review to Assess Definitions and Applications of Concepts

In light of the current public health challenges, calls for more inter- and transdisciplinarity in the public health workforce are increasing, particularly to respond to complex and intersecting health challenges, such as those presented by the climate crisis, emerging infectious diseases, or military conflict. Although widely used, it is unclear how the concepts of multi-, inter-, and transdisciplinarity are applied with respect to the public health workforce. We conducted a scoping review and qualitative content analysis to provide an overview of how the concepts of multi-, inter-, and transdisciplinarity are defined and applied in the academic literature about the public health workforce. Of the 1957 records identified, 324 articles were included in the review. Of those, 193, 176, and 53 mentioned the concepts of multi-, inter-, and transdisciplinarity, respectively. Overall, 44 articles provided a definition. Whilst definitions of multidisciplinarity were scarce, definitions of inter- and transdisciplinarity were more common and richer, highlighting the aim of the collaboration and the blurring and dissolution of disciplinary boundaries. A better understanding of the application of multi-, inter-, and transdisciplinarity is an important step to implementing these concepts in practice, including in institutional structures, academic curricula, and approaches in tackling public health challenges.
Humic Acid Improves Plant Yield, Antimicrobial Activity and Essential Oil Composition of Oregano (Origanum vulgare L. subsp. hirtum (Link.) Ietswaart)

The effects of humic acid on plant yield, essential oil content, the composition of essential oil and the antimicrobial activity of Origanum vulgare L. subsp. hirtum (Link.) (cv. Tinmaz) cultivated in 2017 and 2018 under Eskisehir ecological conditions were evaluated. Three humic acid (HA) doses in response to 50.0 L ha−1 (HA 50), 30.0 L ha−1 (HA 30) and 0.0 L ha−1 (HA 0, as control) were applied to soil at the vegetative stage and beginning of the blooming stage of the plant throughout each harvest in both years. Essential oil composition was determined using GC-FID/GC-MS. The antibacterial and antifungal activity were determined by the well-diffusion method. Fresh herb yield, dry herb yield and dry leaf yield were highest at HA 50 both years, although essential oil content increased in 2017 at both HA 50 and HA 30, but was greatest at HA 50 in the second year. The essential oil content differences between the control dose and 50.0 L HA ha−1 were 0.46% and 0.42% in 2017 and 2018, respectively. The antimicrobial activity of the essential oil samples against two bacteria species (Enterococcus faecalis and Staphylococcus aureus and two yeast species (Candida albicans and Candida parapisilosis) was generally higher than that of the control drugs, and the activity increased with increasing HA doses. Analysis of the essential oil components showed that the carvacrol and γ-Terpinene ratios generally increased as the HA doses increased to 50.0 L HA ha−1. Soil HA applications could be recommended for higher quality, plant yield and antimicrobial activity of Origanum vulgare L. subsp. hirtum.
Did You Say [Obscenity] Forget about It?: Examining the Joint Effect of Nostalgia Appeals and Product Types on Receivers’ Purchase Intention Based on Heuristic-Systematic Model (HSM)

Abstract This study tested the joint effect of nostalgia appeals and product types on receivers’ purchase intention. The current study also tested the roles of mixed thoughts and mixed emotions as mediators in explicating the processing of nostalgia-themed messages based on heuristic-systematic model (HSM). The results from an online experiment showed that when a public product was promoted, exposure to personal nostalgia-themed advertising led to a higher level of intention to purchase through increased mixed emotions and favorable attitude toward advertising relative to exposure to historical nostalgia-themed advertising. Theoretically, the findings in the currents study are valuable in that the current study empirically examined one of the untested propositions taking rest in the prior literature. That is, the current study opens up a new avenue to examine the effect of nostalgia appeals in the realm of prior literature on advertising message processing. Practically, the findings are contradictory to the stated but untested proposition, which alerts scholars in the academic world and advertisers and marketers in the real world to take into account age-segmented communication strategies for nostalgia-themed strategic messages.
Eulerian and Lagrangian velocity statistics in weakly forced two-dimensional turbulence

We present statistics of velocity fluctuations in both the Lagrangian and Eulerian frame for weakly driven two-dimensional turbulence. We find that simultaneous inverse energy and enstrophy ranges present in the Lagrangian and Eulerian Fourier spectra are not directly echoed in real-space moments of velocity difference. The spectral ranges, however, do line up very well with ratios of the real-space moments {\em local} exponents, indicating that though the real-space moments are not scaling ``nicely'', the relative behavior of the velocity difference probability distribution functions is changing over very short ranges of length scales. Utilizing this technique we show that the ratios of the local exponents for Eulerian moments in weak two-dimensional turbulence behave in agreement with Kolmogorov predictions over the spectrally identified ranges. The Lagrangian local exponent ratios, however, behave in a different manner compared to their Eulerian counterparts, and deviate significantly from what would be expected from Kolmogorov predictions.
Examining the ability to track multiple moving targets as a function of postural stability: a comparison between team sports players and sedentary individuals

Background The ability to track multiple objects plays a key role in team ball sports actions. However, there is a lack of research focused on identifying multiple object tracking (MOT) performance under rapid, dynamic and ecologically valid conditions. Therefore, we aimed to assess the effects of manipulating postural stability on MOT performance. Methods Nineteen team sports players (soccer, basketball, handball) and sixteen sedentary individuals performed the MOT task under three levels of postural stability (high, medium, and low). For the MOT task, participants had to track three out of eight balls for 10 s, and the object speed was adjusted following a staircase procedure. For postural stability manipulation, participants performed three identical protocols (randomized order) of the MOT task while standing on an unstable platform, using the training module of the Biodex Balance System SD at levels 12 (high-stability), eight (medium-stability), and four (low-stability). Results We found that the ability to track moving targets is dependent on the balance stability conditions (F2,66 = 8.7, p < 0.001, η² = 0.09), with the disturbance of postural stability having a negative effect on MOT performance. Moreover, when compared to sedentary individuals, team sports players showed better MOT scores for the high-stability and the medium-stability conditions (corrected p-value = 0.008, Cohen’s d = 0.96 and corrected p-value = 0.009, Cohen’s d = 0.94; respectively) whereas no differences were observed for the more unstable conditions (low-stability) between-groups. Conclusions The ability to track moving targets is sensitive to the level of postural stability, with the disturbance of balance having a negative effect on MOT performance. Our results suggest that expertise in team sports training is transferred to non-specific sport domains, as shown by the better performance exhibited by team sports players in comparison to sedentary individuals. This study provides novel insights into the link between individual’s ability to track multiple moving objects and postural control in team sports players and sedentary individuals.
Differential Activation and Desensitization States Promoted by Non-canonical α7 nAChR Agonists

# current address: Medicinal Chemistry Section, Molecular Targets and Medications Discovery Branch, National Institute on Drug Abuse − Intramural Research Program, National Institutes of Health, 333 Cassell Drive, Baltimore, Maryland 21224 USA This article has not been copyedited and formatted. The final version may differ from this version. JPET Fast Forward. Published on September 2, 2022 as DOI: 10.1124/jpet.122. 001354
Supercritical Fluids and Nanoparticles in Cancer Therapy

Nanoparticles are widely used in the pharmaceutical industry due to their high surface-to-volume ratio. Among the many techniques used to obtain nanoparticles, those based on supercritical fluids ensure reduced dimensions, narrow particle size distributions, and a very low or zero solvent residue in the powders. This review focuses on using supercritical carbon dioxide-based processes to obtain the nanoparticles of compounds used for the treatment or prevention of cancer. The scientific literature papers have been classified into two groups: nanoparticles consisting of a single active principle ingredient (API) and carrier/API nanopowders. Various supercritical carbon dioxide (scCO2) based techniques for obtaining the nanoparticles were considered, along with the operating conditions and advantages and disadvantages of each process.
Tortious Liability vs Contractual Liability. Comparative View

To speak of responsibility and accountability in human actions is to bring together two disciplines: philosophy and law. The society we live in is based on knowledge, one in which human values have transformed, relativism being an element that outlines certain justifications of the individual for their actions. The same is not the case in law, where everyone is accountable and responsible for their actions. In this paper we will bring to the forefront the tortious liability vs. contractual liability.
The Effects of Acute Virtual Reality Exergaming on Mood and Executive Function: Exploratory Crossover Trial

Background Virtual reality (VR) exergaming is a new intervention strategy to help humans engage in physical activity to enhance mood. VR exergaming may improve both mood and executive function by acting on the prefrontal cortex, expanding the potential benefits. However, the impact of VR exergaming on executive function has not been fully investigated, and associated intervention strategies have not yet been established. Objective This study aims to investigate the effects of 10 minutes of VR exergaming on mood and executive function. Methods A total of 12 participants played the exergame “FitXR” under 3 conditions: (1) a VR exergame condition (ie, exercise with a head-mounted display condition [VR-EX]) in which they played using a head-mounted display, (2) playing the exergame in front of a flat display (2D-EX), and (3) a resting condition in which they sat in a chair. The color-word Stroop task (CWST), which assesses executive function; the short form of the Profile of Mood States second edition (POMS2); and the short form of the Two-Dimensional Mood Scale (TDMS), which assess mood, were administered before and after the exercise or rest conditions. Results The VR-EX condition increased the POMS2 vigor activity score (rest and VR-EX: t11=3.69, P=.003) as well as the TDMS arousal (rest vs 2D-EX: t11=5.34, P<.001; rest vs VR-EX: t11=5.99, P<.001; 2D-EX vs VR-EX: t11=3.02, P=.01) and vitality scores (rest vs 2D-EX: t11=3.74, P=.007; rest vs VR-EX: t11=4.84, P=.002; 2D-EX vs VR-EX: t11=3.53, P=.006), suggesting that VR exergaming enhanced mood. Conversely, there was no effect on CWST performance in either the 2D-EX or VR-EX conditions. Interestingly, the VR-EX condition showed a significant positive correlation between changes in CWST arousal and reaction time (r=0.58, P=.046). This suggests that the effect of exergaming on improving executive function may disappear under an excessively increased arousal level in VR exergaming. Conclusions Our findings showed that 10 minutes of VR exergaming enhanced mood but did not affect executive function. This suggests that some VR content may increase cognitive demands, leading to psychological fatigue and cognitive decline as an individual approaches the limits of available attentional capacity. Future research must examine the combination of exercise and VR that enhances both brain function and mood.