Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Development and Usability Testing of a Finger Grip Enhancer for the Elderly

As people age, their finger function deteriorates due to muscle, nerve, and brain degeneration. While exercises might delay this deterioration, an invention that enhances elderly people’s pinching abilities is essential. This study aims to design and develop a finger grip enhancer that facilitates the day-to-day pinching activities of elderly people. This research is an extension of a previous study that conceptualised a finger grip enhancer. The device facilitates finger flexion on the thumb and index finger, and weighs 520 g, allowing for improved portability and sufficient force exertion (13.9 N) for day-to-day pinching. To test for usability, eleven subjects aged 65 years and above performed a pinch-lift-hold test on various household objects. The pinch force before and after utilising the device was measured. Using Minitab 18, the statistical significance of using this device was analysed with a paired-samples t-test. With this device, the elderly people’s pinching abilities significantly improved in both pinch force and pinch force steadiness (p < 0.05). The proposed device has the potential to enhance elderly people’s quality of life by supporting a firm pinch in the handling of everyday objects. This research has applicational value in developing exoskeleton devices for patients who require rehabilitation.
Practical application of the CCB model in Czechia

This research aimed to present a new bankruptcy prediction model and apply this original prediction method in practice. The Come Clean Bankruptcy (or CCB) model uses relevant financial indicators and ratios to detect the signs of impending financial distress in time so that the management can take appropriate measures to avoid it. The model was applied to the data reported by 199 entities operating in the textile/clothing industry in the Czech Republic. Analyzing data reported for the previous seven years enabled us to predict which companies are more likely to end in a difficult financial situation. Afterward, comparing these predictions with the actual development of those companies in 2013-2020 serves to verify the efficacy and usability of the model to corporate reality. The research has shown that companies that went bankrupt in the analyzed period represented only a fraction of the data set (roughly 4.5%). Despite the small number of financial failures occurring during the analyzed period, the CCB model could detect impending bankruptcy in one-third of the cases.
Query Processing of Geosocial Data in Location-Based Social Networks

The increasing use of social media and the recent advances in geo-positioning technologies have produced a great amount of geosocial data, consisting of spatial, textual, and social information, to be managed and queried. In this paper, we focus on the issue of query processing by providing a systematic literature review of geosocial data representations, query processing methods, and evaluation approaches published over the last two decades (2000–2020). The result of our analysis shows the categories of geosocial queries proposed by the surveyed studies, the query primitives and the kind of access method used to retrieve the result of the queries, the common evaluation metrics and datasets used to evaluate the performance of the query processing methods, and the main open challenges that should be faced in the near future. Due to the ongoing interest in this research topic, the results of this survey are valuable to many researchers and practitioners by gaining an in-depth understanding of the geosocial querying process and its applications and possible future perspectives.
Effects of periodic bottlenecks on the dynamics of adaptive evolution in microbial populations

Population bottlenecks are common in nature, and they can impact the rate of adaptation in evolving populations. On the one hand, each bottleneck reduces the genetic variation that fuels adaptation. On the other hand, each founder that survives a bottleneck can undergo more generations and leave more descendants in a resource-limited environment, which allows surviving beneficial mutations to spread more quickly. A theoretical model predicted that the rate of fitness gains should be maximized using ∼8-fold dilutions. Here we investigate the impact of repeated bottlenecks on the dynamics of adaptation using numerical simulations and experimental populations of Escherichia coli. Our simulations confirm the model’s prediction when populations evolve in a regime where beneficial mutations are rare and waiting times between successful mutations are long. However, more extreme dilutions maximize fitness gains in simulations when beneficial mutations are common and clonal interference prevents most of them from fixing. To examine the simulations’ predictions, we propagated 48 E. coli populations with 2-, 8-, 100-, and 1000-fold dilutions for 150 days. Adaptation began earlier and fitness gains were greater with 100- and 1000-fold dilutions than with 8-fold dilutions, consistent with the simulations when beneficial mutations are common. However, the selection pressures in the 2-fold treatment were qualitatively different from the other treatments, violating a critical assumption of the model and simulations. Thus, varying the dilution factor during periodic bottlenecks can have multiple effects on the dynamics of adaptation caused by differential losses of diversity, different numbers of generations, and altered selection. Significance Many microorganisms experience population bottlenecks during transmission between hosts or when propagated in the laboratory. These bottlenecks reduce genetic diversity, potentially impeding natural selection. However, bottlenecks can also increase the number of generations over which selection acts, potentially accelerating adaptation. We explored this tension by performing simulations that reflect these opposing factors, and by evolving bacterial populations under several dilution treatments. The simulations show that the dilution factor that maximizes the rate of adaptation depends critically on the rate of beneficial mutations. On balance, the simulations agree well with our experimental results, which imply a high rate of beneficial mutation that generates intense competition between mutant lineages.
Computational simulations establish a novel transducer array placement arrangement that extends delivery of therapeutic TTFields to the infratentorium of patients with brainstem gliomas

Background and Purpose Tumor treating fields (TTFields) are a non-invasive, efficacious treatment modality currently approved for supratentorial glioblastomas. Despite their ability to improve overall survival in supratentorial tumors, the current placement of arrays is limited to the supratentorial head, precluding its use in infratentorial tumors. Infratentorial malignancies are in need of new therapy modalities given their poor prognoses in both children and adults. The aim of this research is to determine whether rearrangement of TTFields may allow for management of infratentorial tumors. Materials and methods Delivery of TTFields using Novocure’s prototype Optune™ device human male head model was simulated based on brain MRIs from patients with brainstem gliomas to develop a novel array layout designed to extend adequate infratentorial coverage. Results Array placement on the vertex, bilateral posterolateral occiput, and superior-posterior neck achieved intensities above 1.1 V/cm (average 1.7 V/cm; maximum 2.3 V/cm) in the vertical field direction and above 1 V/cm (average 2 V/cm; maximum 2.8 V/cm) in the horizontal field direction of the infratentorium. The calculated field intensity within the simulated tumors were in the therapeutic range and demonstrated the effective delivery of TTFields to the infratentorial brain. Conclusions Our findings suggest that rearrangement of the TTFields standard array with placement of electrodes on the vertex, bilateral posterolateral occiput, and superior-posterior neck allows for adequate electric field distribution in the infratentorium that is within the therapeutic range.
The Crosstalk of Long Non-Coding RNA and MicroRNA in Castration-Resistant and Neuroendocrine Prostate Cancer: Their Interaction and Clinical Importance

Prostate cancer is featured by its heterogeneous nature, which indicates a different prognosis. Castration-resistant prostate cancer (CRPC) is a hallmark of the treatment-refractory stage, and the median survival of patients is only within two years. Neuroendocrine prostate cancer (NEPC) is an aggressive variant that arises from de novo presentation of small cell carcinoma or treatment-related transformation with a median survival of 1–2 years from the time of diagnosis. The epigenetic regulators, such as long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) and microRNAs (miRNAs), have been proven involved in multiple pathologic mechanisms of CRPC and NEPC. LncRNAs can act as competing endogenous RNAs to sponge miRNAs that would inhibit the expression of their targets. After that, miRNAs interact with the 3’ untranslated region (UTR) of target mRNAs to repress the step of translation. These interactions may modulate gene expression and influence cancer development and progression. Otherwise, epigenetic regulators and genetic mutation also promote neuroendocrine differentiation and cancer stem-like cell formation. This step may induce neuroendocrine prostate cancer development. This review aims to provide an integrated, synthesized overview under current evidence to elucidate the crosstalk of lncRNAs with miRNAs and their influence on castration resistance or neuroendocrine differentiation of prostate cancer. Notably, we also discuss the mechanisms of lncRNA–miRNA interaction in androgen receptor-independent prostate cancer, such as growth factors, oncogenic signaling pathways, cell cycle dysregulation, and cytokines or other transmembrane proteins. Conclusively, we underscore the potential of these communications as potential therapeutic targets in the future.
Towards Collective Knowledge Systems: The Intersection of the Social Web, the Semantic Web, and Machine Learning

Collective Knowledge Systems are information systems that utilize the knowledge made available through Social Media by using Semantic Web technology. The current state of the Social Web, comprising all the content made available through regular user participation, can best be described as “collected intelligence,” i.e., value mainly ensues from this knowledge being available rather than directly usable in a computational context.The potential of collective intelligence is powerfully illustrated in nature by, for example, the behaviour of social insects. Some of these evolutionary adaptations have been successfully abstracted and captured in computational systems, such as Ant Colony Optimization, amongst many others. Referring to collective intelligence in the context of the human cyberspace, Pierre Levy synthesised the latter as “enabling members of delocalized communities to interact within a mobile landscape of signification,” stressing that “the greater the number of collective intellects with which an individual is involved, the more opportunities he has to diversify his knowledge and desire. ” His vision on collective intelligence of the sort emerging in cyberspace expands to dramatically alter the course of development of (knowledge) economies.What remains after we have mechanized agriculture, industry and messaging technologies? The economy will centre, as it does already, on that which can never be fully automated, on that which is irreducible: the production of the social bond, the relational. Those who manufacture things will become scarcer and scarcer, and their labour will become mechanized, augmented, automated to a greater and greater extent. The final frontier will be the human itself, that which can’t be automated: the creation of sensible worlds, invention, relation, the continuous recreation of the community. What kind of engineering will best meet the needs of a growing economy of human qualities? While it may be argued that systems such as Wikipedia (and its more machine-friendly version -- DBpedia), Twitter, and Google are systems that exhibit characteristics of Collective Knowledge Systems, we argue that none of these systems fully adheres to the functionality originally specified in: next to the collective knowledge stored by the systems, i.e., collected knowledge, the system should be able to “create new value from the collected data. ” It is here that the vast amounts of content on the Social Web can be morphed from a universe of unstructured data into knowledge that is available in a computational context. And it is here that Semantic Web technologies, through their ability to infer new knowledge from known facts, can crucially contribute.
Effect of Xanthohumol Added to Diet on Blood Biochemistry in Japanese Quails

In this paper, we monitored to effect of xanthohumol added to diet on blood biochemistry in Japanese quails. Forty Japanese quails breeds lines Pharaoh were included in the experiment. The quails were randomly divided into two groups: one control and one experimental group with supplementation by xanthohumol in feed. In the evaluation of biochemical parameters, we focused on total protein, albumin, globulin, glucose, cholesterol and enzyme activity of AST (Aspartate aminotransferase), ALT (Alanine aminotransferase) and ɤ-GT (ɤ-Glutamyltransferase). Statistical comparisons were made between group with supplementation by xanthohumol in feed and the control group. Total protein and albumin levels were significantly differed between groups (P <0.05). A significant decrease in AST activity (P <0.05) was observed in supplementation group relative to control group.
Adaptive Trajectory Control Design for Bilateral Robotic Arm with Enforced Sensorless and Acceleration based Force Control Technique

This study offers an approach for tackling the issue of instability on the computed force generated on a joint of a robotic arm by improving the model of a bilateral master-slave haptic system with an adaptive technique known as Reaction Force Observer (RFOB). The purpose of recommended modelling is to correct unsought signals coming from the employed standard controller and the surroundings produced within the moving joint of the articulated robotic arm. RFOB is employed to adjust the signal interference by modifying its position response to obtain the desired final location. The investigation and observation were carried out in two separate tests to evaluate the outcomes of the recommended integration technique with the former system that only enforced Disturbance Observer (DOB). Generated feedbacks produced from the organised experiments are measured inside a simulation platform. All numerical records and signal charts illustrate the durability of the proposed method since the system integrated with acceleration-based force control is more precise and quicker. Keywords—Force and position controller; reaction force observer; bilateral control robotic arm; sensorless; system response
Influence of Organic Matter/Bacteria on the Formation and Transformation of Sulfate Green Rust

The corrosion processes of carbon steel immersed in natural seawater are influenced by microorganisms due to important biological activity. An analysis of the corrosion product layers formed on carbon steel coupons in natural or artificial seawater revealed that sulfate green rust GR(SO42−) was favored in natural environments. In this paper, the role of organic matter/bacteria on the formation and transformation of this compound are addressed. GR(SO42−) was precipitated from Fe(II) and Fe(III) salts in the presence of various marine bacterial species not involved in the redox cycle of Fe or S. Abiotic experiments were performed for comparison, first without any organic species and then with sodium acetate added as a small organic ion. The obtained aqueous suspensions were aged at room temperature for 1 week. The number of bacteria (CFU/mL) was followed over time and the solid phases were characterized by XRD. Whatever the fate of the bacteria (no activity, or activity and growth), the formation of GR(SO42−) was favored and its transformation to magnetite completely inhibited. This effect is attributed to the adsorption of organic molecules on the lateral sides of the GR(SO42−) crystals. A similar effect, though less important, was observed with acetate.
A Comprehensive Analysis of E-Health Literacy Research Focuses and Trends

Objective: To sort out the research focuses in the field of e-health literacy, analyze its research topics and development trends, and provide a reference for relevant research in this field in the future. Methods: The literature search yielded a total of 431 articles retrieved from the core dataset of Web of Science using the keywords “ehealth literacy”, “E-health literacy” and “electronic health literacy”. A bibliometric analysis was performed by using CiteSpace to explore the development history, hot themes, and trends of future research in the field of e-health literacy. Results: The thematic evolution path in e-health literacy was divided into three stages. The research focuses were inspected from four aspects: evaluation, correlation with health-promotion behaviors, influencing factors, and intervention measures for improvement. Conclusion: E-health literacy research faces challenges such as the development of the connotation of the term, the objectivity of evaluation methods, and the long-term impact of interventions. Future research themes in e-health literacy will include the standardization of evaluation instruments and the individualization of therapeutic strategies.
Twofold Observer-Based Precise Force Control

Force sensor measurement noises and mechanical disturbances make realization of stable and robust force control systems challenging. With regard to this, a precise force control system that implements a combination of force and disturbance observers (DOBs) is proposed in this brief. The observers are a reduced-order multisensor-based force observer (RMFOB) to attenuate sensor measurement noises and a model-based force DOB (FDOB) to suppress the effects of mechanical disturbances. These are combined in a closed-loop setting to form a twofold observer-based precise force control system. A novel systematic tuning criterion for the RMFOB and FDOB cutoff frequencies utilizing sensor noise and force disturbance intensities derived from the proposed closed-loop system is developed. In addition, analysis of robust stability against nonlinearity and parameter variations of the proposed system is conducted using RMFOB cutoff frequency. Finally, effectiveness of the proposed method is verified by theoretical analyses, simulations, and experiments.
The Idea of „Depth” in Ignatian Pedagogy in Face of some Tendencies of Digital Education

RESEARCH OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study is to present some contradictory tendencies and draw attention to two phenomena that prove their contradiction. The first one is the missing dimension of depth of knowledge which suggests that the ubiquitous source of information and student awareness is not automatically a qualitative asset. On the other hand, the gradual digitalization of education increasingly indicates the fragmentation of such a teaching process. THE RESEARCH PROBLEM AND METHODS: The article intends to emphasize the importance of two pillars of Jesuit pedagogy, which historically date back to the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius and which were revived by the interpretations of two former superiors of the Society of Jesus, P. Arrupe and A. Nicholas. However, the present times seems to bring different goals in the perspective of digital media and professional profiling of the student. THE PROCESS OF ARGUMENTATION: The article is structured as follows. In the first part, the author presents the conclusions resulting from research and measurements conducted in Slovakia in recent years, which aimed at examining students' skills in reading comprehension and indicates the growing support for the digitalisation of education in Slovakia, which the author (and not only he) perceives as highly contradictory. On the other hand, the article makes an attempt to counter the notions: the “reference to depth” and the integrity of the human being, more and more often mentioned in the literature. RESEARCH RESULTS: The present study is to demonstrate that Jesuit pedagogical appeal to the need for “integral” development of the person and “depth” is extremely actual in this field. CONCLUSIONS, INNOVATIONS, RECOMMENDATIONS: The aim of the study is to show the need to re-develop these threads of depth and integral development of the human being, along with other pillars of Jesuit education, and rethink its message.
ANÁLISIS CROSS-CULTURAL DE LA ACEPTACIÓN DE LOS SITIOS WEBS

Internet has become a global medium, so the Web site design should express the content for all cultures. Although a website can be hosted in Spain, users worldwide can surf on it. Culture could have a great influence on the effectiveness of marketing efforts in this new medium. The usability is related with the Web design but do different cultures perceived the same level of it? The Web site structure could moderate attitudes towards it and intentions to use it. Two different cultures, Spain and United Kingdom, are compared in this research, finding differences in Hofstede’s dimensions between Internet users and no-users in both countries. Control and risk perceived act in a different ways that another investigators found. And there isn’t significant differences in perceived usability, so it could be said that there is merging a virtual culture values that have to be studied.
Overexpression CPT1A reduces lipid accumulation via PPARα/CD36 axis to suppress the cell proliferation in ccRCC

Clear cell renal carcinoma (ccRCC) is histologically defined by its cytoplasmic lipid deposits. Lipid metabolism disorder largely increases the risk of ccRCC. In this study, we aimed to investigate the biological functions and molecular mechanisms of carnitine palmitoyl transferase 1A (CPT1A) in ccRCC. Our results showed that CPT1A is decreased in ccRCC clinical samples and cell lines compared with that in normal samples. Lentivirus overexpressing CPT1A was used to investigate the neoplastic phenotypes of ccRCC, and the results showed that lipid accumulation and tumor growth are attenuated both in vitro and in vivo. In addition, CPT1A prevents cholesterol uptake and lipid accumulation by increasing the peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor α (PPARα) level through regulation of Class B scavenger receptor type 1 (SRB1) and cluster of differentiation 36 (CD36). Furthermore, PI3K/Akt signaling pathway promotes tumor cell proliferation in ccRCC, which is related to the enhanced expression of CD36. Functionally, weakened CPT1A expression is critical for lipid accumulation to promote ccRCC development. Collectively, our research unveiled a novel function of CPT1A in lipid metabolism via PPARα/CD36 axis, which provides a new theoretical explanation for the pathogenesis of ccRCC. Targeting CPT1A may be a potential therapeutic strategy to treat ccRCC.