Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Quality of life in families under quarantine: a cross-sectional study in seven countries during the first outbreak of COVID-19

Background The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted human well-being worldwide in unforeseen ways. In early 2020, the spread of the virus left its mark on every affected country, impacting mental health by limiting daily activities and causing fatalities amidst public health strategies to mitigate its impact. The influence of COVID-19 on the quality of life (QoL) may vary between countries, underscoring the need to examine its effects on individuals and families during the mandatory home quarantine. We aimed to assess the QoL of individuals and families during home isolation by COVID-19 lockdown. Methods A cross-sectional study was conducted from February to May 2020. We included adult partners (≥18 years) of families from Brazil, Colombia, Spain, Japan, Peru, Russia, and Venezuela. Using the 26-item World Health Organization Quality of Life Brief (WHOQOL-BREF) questionnaire we assess the impact of COVID-19 on their partner/family member’s QoL. Results The survey was completed by 466 participants (mean age = 38.59 ± 13.75 years; females = 298) and 76% worked mostly as health professionals from South America (69.2%), Europe (18.4%), and Asia (12.4%). The WHOQOL-BREF mean score from 38.38 ± 11.55 (range = 22.8–43.4). The average quality of life in South America (41.9 ± 1.2) was significantly higher than that of European countries (30.9 ± 11.5) (p = 0.002). The social relations dimension was the only one with values close to 100 (mean = 83.3) in 6/7 evaluated countries, where only Spain had a low score (41 ± 33.12). Women had a slightly lower quality of life than men, but it was not significant (40.2 ± 8.8 vs. 41.5 ± 9.9, p = 0.354), while we found differences in the overall QoL between young and older, and by employment type (p < 0.05). According to family structure, we found differences on QoL between nuclear and siblings’ families (p = 0.024). Conclusion Families from seven countries of three continents reported poor QoL during the first outbreak of COVID-19. The pandemic scenario has dramatically weakened the QoL in 3/4 dimensions, where social relationships have remained high. It is important to fully address the impact of this reduced QoL on families after several waves of infection and to provide comprehensive support in the post-COVID future.
Evaluation of an online research best practices training for community health workers and promotoras

Abstract Introduction: Community health workers and promotoras (CHW/Ps) have a fundamental role in facilitating research with communities. However, no national standard training exists as part of the CHW/P job role. We developed and evaluated a culturally- and linguistically tailored online research best practices course for CHW/Ps to meet this gap. Methods: After the research best practices course was developed, we advertised the opportunity to CHW/Ps nationwide to complete the training online in English or Spanish. Following course completion, CHW/Ps received an online survey to rate their skills in community-engaged research and their perceptions of the course using Likert scales of agreement. A qualitative content analysis was conducted on open-ended response data. Results: 104 CHW/Ps completed the English or Spanish course (n = 52 for each language; mean age 42 years SD ± 12); 88% of individuals identified as female and 56% identified as Hispanic, Latino, or Spaniard. 96%–100% of respondents reported improvement in various skills. Nearly all CHW/Ps (97%) agreed the course was relevant to their work, and 96% felt the training was useful. Qualitative themes related to working more effectively as a result of training included enhanced skills, increased resources, and building bridges between communities and researchers. Discussion: The CHW/P research best practices course was rated as useful and relevant by CHW/Ps, particularly for communicating about research with community members. This course can be a professional development resource for CHW/Ps and could serve as the foundation for a national standardized training on their role related to research best practices.
La arquitectura financiera mundial y regional a la luz de la crisis

La reciente crisis financiera ha puestode nuevo en el centro del debate mundial la necesidad de contar con una arquitectura financiera internacional adecuada para el mundo de hoy. Este debate abarca tanto al sistema monetario internacional como la regulacion financiera y la banca multilateral de desarrollo. En este ensayo se analiza brevemente el papel de las instituciones regionales en la arquitectura financiera internacional, se revisan los cambios que han acontecido a nivel mundial y se resena la evolucion de la arquitectura financiera regional con la que cuenta America Latina y el Caribe y se analiza la posibilidad de utilizarla y fortalecerla para enfrentar la crisis en curso.
Correlation of pain perception and fentanyl consumption after major abdominal surgery with CGRP 4218T/C polymorphism: A prospective interventional study

Background and Aims: Genetic polymorphisms contribute to patients' variability in pain perception and response to opioid treatment. The present study evaluated the association of calcitonin gene-related peptide (CGRP) 4218T/C polymorphisms with fentanyl consumption over 24 h postoperatively in patients after major abdominal surgery. Methods: Eighty-five patients undergoing major abdominal surgery under general anaesthesia were recruited. For postoperative analgesia, epidural fentanyl and intravenous paracetamol were provided. The CGRP 4218T/C genotype was analysed, and the association between the genotype of the patient and the total consumption of fentanyl in the first 24 h after surgery was assessed. The association between different genotypes, the severity of postoperative pain and the side effects of opioids were also studied. Results: Our study population distribution included 52.9% of the T/T genotype (wild homozygote), 35.3% of the T/C genotype (heterozygote) and 11.8% of the C/C genotype (mutant homozygote). Mean (standard deviation) total fentanyl consumption in the first 24 h was found to be highest in the C/C group (212.0 [7.5] μg), followed by the T/T group (182.8 [9.9] μg) and was the least in the T/C group (159.6 [7.5] μg). The C/C group reported higher pain scores in all the study periods. There was no significant difference in the side effects of opioids, such as nausea, vomiting, sedation among different genotypes of CGRP 4218T/C. Conclusion: The polymorphism of CGRP 4218T/C affects postoperative pain perception and analgesic consumption. Patients with the C/C genotype had higher postoperative fentanyl consumption and pain scores.
Longitudinal data analysis in the presence of informative sampling: weighted distribution or joint modelling

ABSTRACT Weighted distributions, as an example of informative sampling, work appropriately under the missing at random mechanism since they neglect missing values and only completely observed subjects are used in the study plan. However, length-biased distributions, as a special case of weighted distributions, remove the subjects with short length deliberately, which surely meet the missing not at random mechanism. Accordingly, applying length-biased distributions jeopardizes the results by producing biased estimates. Hence, an alternate method has to be used such that the results are improved by means of valid inferences. We propose methods that are based on weighted distributions and joint modelling procedure and compare them in analysing longitudinal data. After introducing three methods in use, a set of simulation studies and analysis of two real longitudinal datasets affirm our claim.
EVALUATION OF SELF-HARM AND SUICIDAL ATTEMPTS AMONG UNIVERSITY STUDENTS

Self–harm and suicidal attempts are very important public health concerns and emerging issues affecting millions globally, especially young and adults. Suicidal attempts and self–harm are essential predictors of suicide in future and intolerable suffering. Assessment in this domain is challenging as no agreement is observed to conceptualize the behaviors. Our study aims to assess the prevalence rate of suicidal attempts and thoughts and self–harm thoughts in young adults. This cross-sectional study was conducted at Shaheed Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto Medical University for 6 months. An online questionnaire was prepared and circulated among young adults. Informed consent was obtained from all participants. The questionnaire included many demographic questions, including age, gender, living status, and relationship status. The data was analyzed using SPSS 24.0. For all qualitative variables, frequencies and percentages were measured. A total of 401 responses were collected. The number of female participants was more (66.6%) than male participants (33.4%). The majority of participants (70.3%) were aged between 18-23 years, followed by 24-29 years (23.7%) and 30-35 years (6%). In questions regarding self–harm and suicidal thoughts, 27.2% of respondents said that they had serious thoughts about suicide but never attempted it, 17.2% responded that they had such thoughts before attending university, and 11.7% said that they tried to attempt suicide in some manner. Thoughts of suicide and self–harm were observed among university students. Various factors influence students' mental health, including parental help, home environment, and university workload. Stress–free environment and social support to students may decrease the prevalence of suicidal tendencies among students.
Room Impulse Response Estimation using Sparse Online Prediction and Absolute Loss Koby Crammer ∗

The need to accurately and efficiently estimate room impulse responses arises in many acoustic signal processing applications. In this work, we present a general family of algorithms which contain the conventional normalized least mean squares (NLMS) algorithm as a special case. Specific members of this family yield estimates which are robust both to different noise models and choice of parameters. We demonstrate the merits of our approach to accurately estimate sparse room impulse responses in simulations with speech signals.
Advection-Enhanced Gradient Vector Flow for Active-Contour Image Segmentation

In this paper, we propose a new gradient vector flow model with advection enhancement, called advection-enhanced gradient vector flow, for calculating the external force employed in the active-contour image segmentation. The proposed model is mainly inspired by the functional derivative of an adaptive total variation regularizer whose minimizer is expected to be able to effectively preserve the desired object boundary. More specifically, by incorporating an additional advection term into the usual gradient vector flow model, the resulting external force can much better help the active contour to recover missing edges, to converge to a narrow and deep concavity, and to preserve weak edges. Numerical experiments are performed to demonstrate the high performance of the newly proposed model. AMS subject classifications: 68U10, 65K10
An Accessible Web CAPTCHA Design for Visually Impaired Users An Accessible Web CAPTCHA Design for Visually Impaired Users

In the realm of computing, CAPTCHAs are used to determine if a user engaging with a system is a person or a bot. The most common CAPTCHAs are visual in nature, requiring users to recognize images comprising distorted characters or objects. For people with visual impairments, audio CAPTCHAs are accessible alternatives to standard visual CAPTCHAs. Users are required to enter or say the words in an audio-clip when using Audio CAPTCHAs. However, this approach is time-consuming and vulnerable to machine learning algorithms, since automated speech recognition (ASR) systems could eventually understand the content of audio with the improvement of the technique. While adding background noise may deceive ASR systems temporarily, it may cause people to have difficulties de-ciphering the information, thus reducing usability. To address this, we designed a more secure and accessible web CAPTCHA based on the capabilities of people with visually impairments, obviating the need for sight via the use of audio and movement, while also using object detection techniques to enhance the accessibility of the CAPTCHA.
Disturbance Observer-Based Frequency Regulation for Shipboard Microgrid With Communication Delay

Load frequency control of power systems is inherently a disturbance rejection issue. This paper proposes a disturbance observer-based frequency regulation approach for a shipboard microgrid system with communication delay. The proposed control method consists of the design of both disturbance observer and load frequency controller. The design of disturbance observer involves the acquisition of nominal model and the tuning of Q-filter. The nominal model is obtained via the complex curve fitting technique. Whereas the load frequency controller is designed by the frequency response model matching approach. The maximum sensitivity index is utilized as a robustness specification to tune both Q-filter and load frequency controller. The advantage of the proposed method is that inverse response process dynamics are considered into disturbance observer design to obtain better modeling accuracy and frequency regulation performance. Simulation examples including comparison with classical methods are presented to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method.
A Systematic Review of Pressure Ulcers Prevention

Introduction: Pressure ulcers in high-risk patients are contributes to patient burden and cost financially. Identifying strategies on the prevention of high ulcers among those with high risk is necessity. Nevertheless, an intense study exploring those issues is scarce. The study aimed to analyze the prevention method and their effectiveness in pressure ulcer prevention. Method: This study used PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analysis) to guide the systematic review process. The article searches were conducted on Web of Science (WOS), ScienceDirect, Wiley Online Library, and Scopus using the keywords used Decubitus Ulcer, Pressure Ulcer, Management, and Prevention, and any possible combinations. Results: A total of 18 studies met the inclusion criteria for this review and show some different prevention for a pressure ulcer. The findings of the present study are foam dressings, support surfaces, repositioning, topical-based interventions, wearable patient sensors, and two distinct endotracheal tube fixations affect the incidence of pressure ulcers. Conclusions: This current review emphasized a bundle care consisted of two methods or more are effective to reduce the incidence of pressure ulcers rather than a single treatment. Nurses should consider intervention to prevent ulcers among high-risk patients by way analyses of each single treatment prior bundling. Further study investigating factors associated wound’s ulcer healing is necessary.
An Atlas of Interpersonal Situations

Foreword Part I. Introduction and Theory: 1. Interpersonal situations: the context of social behavior 2. Outcome interdependence 3. Interaction conditions and person factors 4. Exploring the geography of the outcome patterns Part II The Situations: Preface to the Entries for the Situations Single Component Patterns: 1. Independence: we go our separate ways 2. Mutual partner control: I scratch your back, you scratch mine 3. Corresponding mutual joint control: getting in sync 4. Conflicting mutual joint control: match or mismatch Two- and three-component patterns: 5. The prisoner's dilemma: me versus we 6. Threat: trading loyalty for justice 7. Chicken: death before dishonor 8. Hero: let's do it your way 9. Conjunctive problems: together we can do it 10. Disjunctive problems: either of us can do it 11. Asymmetric dependence: you're the boss Time-extended patterns: 12. Iterated prisoner's dilemma: united we stand, divided we fall 13. Investment: building for the future 14. Delay of gratification: resisting temptation Incomplete information situations 15. Negotiation: can we agree on a deal? 16. Encounters with strangers: lack of information about a partner 17. Joint decisions under uncertainty: bird in the hand 18. Twists of fate: coping with an uncertain future N-person Situations 19. Third parties: effects of an outsider 20. N-person prisoner's dilemma: tragedy of the commons Movement from one situation to another 21. Movement among situations: where do we go from here? Part III. Epilogue.
KANDUNGAN INFORMASI PADA PENGUMUMAN REVERSE STOCK SPLIT

The objective of this study is to investigate whether market reacts to reverse stock split announcement. If market reacts to the announcement therefore the announcement has information content and vice versa. Reverse stock split is an interesting issue regarding financial policies. The study uses companies listed in Jakarta Stock Exchange (JSX) announcing reverse stock split. The research uses data from 2001 to 2007, because several companies informs reverse stock split to the market during the period. This study expects that the announcement has a market reaction. The result of this study is market reacts to the announcement. Therefore, the announcement has information content.
Secure State Estimation of Singularly Perturbed Switched Systems With Output Deception Attack via Discretized LKF Approach

In this brief, the secure mean-square asymptotic state estimation (SMSASE) of a singularly perturbed switched system (SPSS) with delay and output deception attack is investigated. An attack decomposition method (ADM) is proposed to avoid directly utilizing the attacked output signal, by which a non-attack signal is obtained and utilized to design a full-order estimator such that the state of the original system is precisely estimated. To minimize the influence of switching and time delay on the conservatism of the obtained results, a discretized Lyapunov-Krasovskii functional (LKF) is designed to guarantee the increment coefficient of the LKF at the switching instants to be smaller than one, facilitating easy derivation of non-weighted $\mathcal {L}_{2}$ gain without any additional inequality transformation. The estimation criterion and the design of the estimator gains are provided as linear matrix inequalities (LMIs). The validity of the theoretical analysis is verified through a numerical simulation.
Molecular Variation in the Agouti Gene in Pocket Mice from the Carrizozo Malpaís Lava Flow

Color variation in pocket mice, Chaetodipus intermedius, presents a unique opportunity to study genes contributing to convergent adaptation. While pocket mice generally have light coats matching sand-colored rocks on which they live, dark mice are found on basalt lava flows in the desert southwest. Because the mice match their habitat, they are less likely to be recognized by visual hunters. In one lava flow population, the genetic basis of melanism was identified in the melanocortin-1 receptor (Mc1r). However, it is known that the underlying locus is different in a lava flow population in Carrizozo, NM. In a backcross, it was demonstrated that melanism in Carrizozo is recessive and associated with a marker in agouti, a locus encoding an MC1R antagonist. However, because of the low level of recombination in this cross, genes linked to this marker could underlie color variation. Here, I sequenced regions of agouti previously uncharacterized in pocket mice. I genotyped Carrizozo mice in these regions and identified a SNP significantly associated with coat color likely linked to a causative mutation within agouti. These data support the hypothesis that melanism has arisen at least twice in pocket mice due to changes in different pigmentation genes, Mc1r and agouti.
Sarmatian foraminiferal assemblages of cavern fillings in the Badenian reefs of Medobory (Polupanivka, Western Ukraine)

The Middle Miocene (Upper Badenian) coralline algal reefs of Western Ukraine contain caverns (up to 1 m across) and fissures that are filled by Sarmatian deposits: marly clays, clayey carbonate sand and bioclastic, bryozoan-rich sand. These deposits often contain abundant and very well preserved calcareous benthic foraminifera; agglutinated forms have not been recorded. Foraminiferal tests quite commonly show morphological abnormalities, e.g. twin forms or tests with irregularities in size or shape in last chambers. Each of the three analysed samples is characterized by a different foraminiferal assemblage: Elphidium aculeatum assemblage, Hauerinidae assemblage and Lobatula lobatula assemblage. These assemblages are characteristic for a shallow marine environment. Low taxonomic diversity and high dominance or monospecific foraminiferal assemblages indicate generally a restricted marine environment. It seems that the increasing salinity and very high-energy environment were the most probable factors controlling the composition of the foraminiferal assemblages.
TGF-β pathways in aging and immunity: lessons from Caenorhabditis elegans

The Transforming Growth Factor-β (TGF-β) superfamily of signaling molecules plays critical roles in development, differentiation, homeostasis, and disease. Due to the conservation of these ligands and their signaling pathways, genetic studies in invertebrate systems including the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans have been instrumental in identifying signaling mechanisms. C. elegans is also a premier organism for research in longevity and healthy aging. Here we summarize current knowledge on the roles of TGF-β signaling in aging and immunity.
Research on Three-Phase Hybrid Compensation WPT System With High Misalignment Tolerance and Its ZVS Control Strategy

A three-phase double-sided series and LCC hybrid compensation converter is proposed in this article to achieve high misalignment tolerance and power capability of the wireless power transfer (WPT) system. To obtain excellent performances of the x, y, z, and xy misalignments, a three-phase coupler consisting of adjacent placement of double-D and rectangular coils which have no same-side cross couplings within and among each phase is employed in the proposed converter, it can obtain approximately constant output current with misalignments and load variations. Furthermore, the three-phase imbalanced load characteristics caused by xy misalignment with double-sided cross couplings in adjacent phases are analyzed in detail, and the ZVS control strategy based on three-phase four-leg converter is proposed to ensure the high system efficiency in this case. Finally, a 10 kW prototype with three-phase coupler is built to verify the viability of the proposed three-phase hybrid compensation WPT system. The experimental results show that the proposed converter achieves ZVS in all misalignment directions and the system efficiency achieves 95.13% with fully aligned. The maximum output current fluctuation factor is 10.35% and 1.97% within the designed ranges of misalignments and load variations, respectively.