Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The impact of the COVID-19 epidemic on explicitand implicit attitudes towards black sanitary mask wearers

Pre-COVID-19 epidemic studies found that wearing a sanitary mask negatively impacted perceived facial attractiveness. In particular, people demonstrated more negative explicit or implicit attitudes toward wearers of sanitary masks when the masks were black rather than white. The present study examined whether changes in social behavior in response to the COVID-19 epidemic, including the prevalent use of sanitary masks, might alter explicit and/or implicit attitudes toward wearers of black sanitary masks. We measured explicit (Study 1) and implicit attitudes (Study 3) and fecial attractiveness (Study 2) of males wearing black or white sanitary masks. The results revealed that attitudes toward wearers of black sanitary masks were more positive than those measured pre-epidemic. Regardless of mask color, explicit attractiveness rating scores for low-attractiveness faces tended to increase after the epidemic. However, no such improvement was observed for high-and middle-attractiveness faces. There was also no change in implicit attitudes measured by the implicit association test. These results suggest that the COVID-19 epidemic has reduced explicit negative attitudes toward wearers of black sanitary masks. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved)
Muğla’da Turizmin Sorunlarıyla İlgili Turizm Sektörü Yöneticilerinin Algıları ve Çözüm Önerileri

Apart from the destinations like Marmaris and Bodrum that are highly developed and constructed in terms of tourism, the province of Muğla has also some dist ricts that present different levels of development in tourism. These districts which constitute supply elements to different tourism types include the city center, Fet -hiye, Datça, Milas, Ören, Kavaklıdere, Gökova, Ula and Yatağan. Besides all the se tourism supply elements and development, these districts have some issues related to tourism. Hence, offering solutions to these issues may have great im portance in the diversification and development of tourism activities in the provin ce of Muğla. Scope of this research, these issues will be elaborated and the so lution offers will be discussed. With this design, semi-structured interview techni que has been used and the managers of the tourism enterprises located in Muğ la have been interviewed. Their perceptions about the issues related to the des tination and the solution offers have been presented in the study. In this respect, the lack of tourism awareness, insufficiency of trained and qualified workforce, unplanned tourism structure and infrastructure issues have been perceived as the most important ones by the managers. At the end of the study, the solution offers of the managers to these issues have been summarized in the context of this investigation.
Adaptive Output Feedback Compensation for a Class of Nonlinear Systems With Actuator and Sensor Failures

In this article, an adaptive output feedback compensation scheme is proposed for a class of uncertain nonlinear systems with a set of redundant actuators and a sensor. The sensor output is the only information available for output feedback. Both the actuators and the sensor may suffer from failures during operation and, therefore, all the system states are not available. To estimate the unmeasured states, a modified high-gain observer is designed which can not only ensure the closed-loop system stability but also improve the tracking performance. In the adaptive controller design, to overcome the complexity due to the unknown actuator and sensor failures coupled with the nonlinear functions and unknown parameters, an upper bound estimation method is adopted, which greatly simplifies the design procedure. It is proved that with the proposed scheme, the actuator and sensor failures can be compensated simultaneously, the reconfiguration can be adaptively updated without fault detection and isolation, and the real-tracking error can converge to a residual set, that is, mainly proportional to the sensor gain variation and measurement error.
Exploring Anxiety and Chain Reaction of Anxiety in COVID-19 Pandemic: A large population Web-based survey in Japan

Background: Anxiety plays an important role in psychology, explore the anxiety and its chain reactions can provide a good insight of the measures to address mental health problem caused by the COVID-19 (Coronavirus Disease 2019) epidemic. Methods: A cross-sectional study using data collected via an online self-reported questionnaire was conduct on Japan during the COVID-19 pandemic. Using State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI-6) to assess the level of anxiety, and explore the relationship of anxiety STAI-6 Score, sources of COVID-19 information, the influences of COVID-19, social anxiety symptoms, discrimination, and evaluation toward the government. Results: 4,127 participants were included to the analysis. The level of anxiety is not equally distributed across the general population with different age, gender, educational level, occupation, income, presence of underlying disease and location (P<0.05). The numbers of sources to get information about COVID-19 have a positive correlation with STAI-6 Score (Spearman’rho=0.176, P<0.001). The influences caused by the pandemic are related to moderate-severe anxiety. Then the high level of anxiety would add to social anxiety (Spearman’rho=0.04, P<0.05) and discrimination behaviors (Spearman’rho=0.11, P<0.01). Generalized additive model shows that high anxiety would lower the responders’ evaluations of the preventive measures took by either national government or local government. Conclusions: Our findings provide a statistical evidence for the chain reaction of anxiety, that anxiety reactions may vary in predictable ways. Further researches can focus on what types of strategic interventions can cut the chain response of anxiety, in order to address the mental health problems in a pandemic.
Prognostic Factors of Mid- to Long-term Clinical Outcomes after Arthroscopic Partial Meniscectomy for Medial Meniscal Tears

Backgroud Arthroscopic partial meniscectomy (APM) continues to be the popular treatment for meniscal tears, but recent randomized controlled trials have questioned its efficacy. To provide more evidence-based criteria for patient selection, we undertook this study to identify prognostic factors associated with clinical failure after APM for medial meniscus tears. Methods Medical records of 160 patients followed up for at least 5 years after APM for medial meniscal tears were retrospectively reviewed. Demographic data (age, sex, and body mass index), radiographic variables (Kellgren-Lawrence [K-L] grade and hip-knee-ankle [HKA] angle), and clinical scores (International Knee Documentation Committee score, Tegner activity scale score, Lysholm score, and Knee injury and Osteoarthritis Outcome Score) were recorded. Clinical failure was defined as the need for an additional surgical procedure (arthroscopy, osteotomy, or arthroplasty) or the presence of intolerable pain. Survivorship analysis with clinical failure as an end point was performed using Kaplan-Meier survival curves. Factors related to clinical failure were analyzed using a Cox proportional hazard model. Cutoff values were determined using areas under receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves. Radiographic progression of osteoarthritis was analyzed using the chi-square test, and serial changes of clinical scores were analyzed using a linear mixed model. Results Clinical success rates were 95.7% at 5 years, 75.6% at 10 years, and 46.3% at 15 years. Age, HKA angle, and K-L grade (p = 0.01, p = 0.02, and p = 0.04, respectively) were found to be significant risk factors of clinical failure. Cutoff values at 10 years postoperatively as determined by ROC analysis were 50 years for age (sensitivity = 0.778, 1−specificity = 0.589), grade 2 for K-L grade (sensitivity = 0.778, 1−specificity = 0.109), and 5.5° for HKA angle (sensitivity = 0.667, 1−specificity = 0.258). In patients who had clinical success until 10 years after APM, radiological osteoarthritis progressed gradually. However, the clinical scores of patients who achieved clinical success did not decrease significantly over the 10-year follow-up. Conclusions The poor prognostic factors found to be related to clinical failure after APM for a medial meniscal tear were patient age (≥ 50 years), preoperative K-L grade (≥ grade 2), and preoperative HKA angle (≥ varus 5.5°).
An Asynchronous Forward-Backward-Splitting Power Flow Algorithm of Coupled Transmission and Active Distribution Systems

Considering that the conventional synchronous splitting (MSS) method for power flow calculation of coupled transmission and active distribution (TDC) systems has limitations in efficiency and convergence due to the penetration of distributed generations (DGs) and loop operation, this paper proposes an asynchronous forward-backward-splitting power flow algorithm of TDC systems. In this algorithm, the transmission system operator (TSO) acts as a coordinator and processes forward steps while the distribution system operators (DSOs) act as agents and process backward steps. Two first-in-first-out queues are introduced to realize an asynchronous mechanism, and thus, the TSO does not have to wait for the slowest DSO to complete its power flow calculation and power injection update before the next iteration can proceed. This asynchronous mechanism has a higher efficiency compared with a synchronous one when communication delays exist. In addition, the conventional fixed-point iteration in the MSS method is replaced with the Krasnosel’skii-Mann iteration. The proposed algorithm with appropriate settings will achieve better convergence, especially when active distribution networks are considered, where volt-walt-control-typed and volt-var-control-typed DGs are penetrated. The linear convergence of the proposed algorithm is proved under several assumptions and the parameter tuning issue is discussed with numerical experiments.
VRConvMF: Visual Recurrent Convolutional Matrix Factorization for Movie Recommendation

Sparsity of user-to-item rating data becomes one of challenging issues in the recommender systems, which severely deteriorates the recommendation performance. Fortunately, context-aware recommender systems can alleviate the sparsity problem by making use of some auxiliary information, such as the information of both the users and items. In particular, the visual information of items, such as the movie poster, can be considered as the supplement for item description documents, which helps to obtain more item features. In this paper, we focus on movie recommender system and propose a probabilistic matrix factorization based recommendation scheme called visual recurrent convolutional matrix factorization (VRConvMF), which utilizes the textual and multi-level visual features extracted from the descriptive texts and posters respectively. We implement the proposed VRConvMF and conduct extensive experiments on three commonly used real world datasets to validate its effectiveness. The experimental results illustrate that the proposed VRConvMF outperforms the existing schemes.
The Non-Aligned Movement, Ghana and the Early Days of African Diplomacy: Reflections on a Developing Country’s Foreign Policy

: This paper is an attempt at reviewing Ghana’s foreign policy as a member of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM). It examines the key tenets of the NAM and juxtaposes it with Ghana’s foreign policy directions from the early days of Nkrumah till recent times when virtually all African states have taken sides with one world power or the other. It is about the reflections of what the NAM stands for and how its members have been conducting foreign policy, and the successes and failures in the developing world, and the lessons that can be learnt from its existence in the last six decades. We use Ghana as a case for trying to understand the NAM and the conduct of foreign policy. We realise that though the NAM members such as Ghana still believe in the core principles that underpin the Movement, the country’s foreign policy orientation has not always been one of the total non-alignment. Instead, exigencies in the contemporary international system as well as leadership idiosyncrasy and other related matters by and large influence Ghana’s foreign policy.
A Phase I Dose Escalation Study of Apatinib Combinated with Docetaxel as Second-line Therapy for Advanced Gastric Carcinoma

This study is a phase I clinical trial of 3+3 dose escalation. Three dose escalations of apatinib were employed in this study: 425 mg, 500 mg and 675 mg. Apatinib combined with fixed dose of docetaxel (60 mg/m2, d1, thrice inw). 21 d as one treatment cycle was repeated. Maximum tolerated dose, safety and efficacy were analyzed. From October 2015 to June 2017, a total of eight patients with advanced gastric or gastro-oesophageal junction adenocarcinoma who had failed in the previous first-line treatment were enrolled. One dose-limiting toxicity was observed in patients who received apatinib with the dose of 425 mg combined with docetaxel, but no dose-limiting toxicity was found in additional three patients. Two patients treated with apatinib at the dose of 500 mg combined with docetaxel experienced dose-limiting toxicity, including grade 3 oral mucositis and grade 4 neutropenia respectively. Therefore, Maximum tolerated dose of apatinib was 425 mg. No complete response and partial response were observed; five patients showed stable disease and two had progressive disease. The disease control rate was 71.43 %. The median progression free survival was 4.4 mo (95 % confidence interval, 1.48-7.03) and the median overall survival was 11.5 mo (95 % confidence interval, 3.06-16.56). All patients developed adverse events and treatment-related adverse events. Seven patients (77.78 %) showed treatment-related adverse events greater than or equal to grade 3, mostly including neutropenia and hand-foot syndrome. The combination of apatinib with the dose of 425 mg and docetaxel was well tolerated and support further evaluation for the second-line treatment of advanced gastric cancer.
Pullback and forward attractors of contractive difference equations

The construction of attractors of a dissipative difference equation is usually based on compactness assumptions. In this paper, we replace them with contractivity assumptions under which the pullback and forward attractors are identical. As a consequence, attractors degenerate to unique bounded entire solutions. As an application, we investigate attractors of integrodifference equations which are popular models in theoretical ecology.
A novel graphene pressure sensor with zig–zag shaped piezoresistors for maximum strain coverage for enhancing the sensitivity of the pressure sensor

The demand for flexible and wearable sensors is increasing day by day due to varied applications in the biomedical field. Especially highly sensitive sensors are required for the detection of the low signal from the body. It is important to develop a pressure sensor that can convert the maximum input signal into the electrical output. In this paper, the design and performance of graphene piezoresistive pressure sensors have been investigated by zig–zag piezoresistors on the square diaphragm. On the applied pressure, deformation is sensed by the piezoresistors above the diaphragm. Finite element analysis is carried out to investigate the effect of zig–zag piezoresistors on the square diaphragm. Simulated results for the optimized design are obtained for an operating range of 0–100 psi for pressure sensitivity.
Damage-less removal of surface contamination using atomic hydrogen generated on heated tungsten mesh

An extreme ultraviolet (EUV) light with a wavelength of 13.5 nm has been introduced to 7 nm FinFET technology. Optical elements such as Mo/Si multilayer mirror in lithography equipment are contaminated with hydrocarbon during the EUV light irradiation. The reflectance of the mirrors is decreased by carbon contamination. Therefore, the removal method of the carbon contamination is required for reduction of maintenance cost. The surface treatment using atomic hydrogen generated by a heated tungsten mesh, called as atomic hydrogen annealing (AHA), have been investigated for cleaning of the optical elements used in the synchrotron facility. The Au/Cr/Si substrate, Ni mirror and Ni diffraction grating with carbon contamination were cleaned and the reflectance of the mirrors was recovered by AHA. In addition, the AHA conditions could be optimized for cleaning of Mo/Si multilayer mirrors from the relationship between the treatment conditions and degradation. Furthermore, to clarify the reaction of atomic hydrogen with not only C-C bond but also C-O bond, the graphene oxide (GO) film was also treated by AHA. The C-O-C bonds in the GO films were preferentially reduced by AHA. It is found that the surface contamination consisting of hydrocarbon and/or C-O bond on the optical elements is removed without damage. The ability of atomic hydrogen to clean the optical elements had been confirmed. The findings are useful for the advanced lithography technology using EUV light.
In silico library design, screening and MD simulation of COX-2 inhibitors for anticancer activity

Health problems are increasing worldwide pertaining to cancer modalities. Cyclooxygenase enzyme is known to be involved in cancer biology, neurological disorders, cardiovascular and other diseases. It has been a promising target for developing novel anti-inflammatory drugs in breast cancer treatment. Hence, a computer-aided drug design strategy was applied to identify potent inhibitors of the COX-2 receptor. For this purpose, 12084 ligands from different databases to be tested based on similarity search criteria and were docked against our target protein COX-2 retrieved from the protein data bank. The high-throughput virtual screening protocol was performed and examined the compounds for its binding free energies. Eleven compounds were found out with better binding affinity by virtual screening results and showed interaction with the protein at the known active site. The selected compounds filtered through the Lipinski‟s rule of five. The physicochemical properties and bioactivity scores were calculated. Molecular docking calculations, MD simulations, ADMET properties, and protein-ligand interaction were analyzed to determine the suitability of each ligand. Overall, the results from our study suggest that compound ZINC000039428234 could be a potent inhibitor for the COX-2 protein of breast cancer. We look forward to this result is of the enormous key in designing a potential drug candidate for breast cancer.
A new genus for the tiny hawk Accipiter superciliosus and semicollared hawk A. collaris (Aves: Accipitridae), with comments on the generic name for the crested goshawk A. trivirgatus and Sulawesi goshawk A. griseiceps

Abstract Multiple molecular phylogenetic studies have demonstrated that two Neotropical raptors, tiny hawk Accipiter superciliosus and its sister species semicollared hawk A. collaris, are not closely related to core Accipiter, and that A. superciliosus, at least, possesses osteological characters not replicated in the remainder of the genus. Based on these data, there is a need to recognise their distinctiveness at generic level. However, as recently noted in two global bird checklists, no name is available to accommodate them, so we provide a new nomen here. Furthermore, two Asian accipitrids, crested goshawk A. trivirgatus and its presumed closest relative Sulawesi goshawk A. griseiceps, are also phylogenetically distinctive; in this case the genus-group name Lophospiza is applicable. We also designate type species for two genus-group names (Hieraspiza and Eusparvius) currently in the synonymy of Accipiter, and, as an aid to future workers, we provide a synonymy of the genus Accipiter and a list of species currently included in Accipiter for which published molecular phylogenetic data are apparently lacking.
Identification of bacterial isolates from nasolacrimal duct infection in children with congenital nasolacrimal duct obstruction from Feiz teaching hospital, Isfahan

Dacryocystitis is a lacrimal sac and duct inflammation. It can be inherited or congenital. Two primary forms are acquired dacryocystitis, acute and chronic. The goal of this study is to recognize common bacteria causing nasolacrimal duct infection in children with congenital nasolacrimal duct obstruction and to determine their antimicrobial susceptibility profiles. This cross-sectional research was conducted from January to February 2017 in the Department of Ophthalmology affiliated to Isfahan University of Medical Sciences (center of Iran). Using phenotypic and genotypic approaches, identification of specimens was performed. Disc diffusion method was used for checking antibiotic susceptibility. All of the 59 isolates from the culture of specimens belonged to Gram-positive cocci. Staphylococcus epidermidis was the predominant species (n= 44, 74.6%) followed by Staphylococcus aureus (n= 11, 18.6%), Staphylococcus haemolyticus (n= 2, 3.4%) and each of Staphylococcus saprophyticus , and Streptococcus pneumoniae (n= 1, 1.7%). Totally, the highest resistance was found against erythromycin and tetracycline while, chloramphenicol, and ciprofloxacin showed the highest susceptibility. The current research is useful in evaluating the suitable antibiotic in our area for the systemic treatment of dacryocystitis. The most effective agents against the most common isolates were chloramphenicol and ciprofloxacin. Since the bacteriology of nasolacrimal duct infections varies from region to region, it is recommended that further studies in other areas of our country can be detected the etiology of bacterial pathogens involved in acute infections.
Computing Morse decomposition of ODEs via Runge-Kutta method

A method of computing combinatorial Morse decomposition for a system of ordinary diﬀer-ential equations is proposed. It uses numerical solutions by Runge-Kutta method, and it is based on an aﬃne approximation and QR decomposition. In contrast to interval arithmetic, it enables us to compute Morse decomposition at lower computational costs sacriﬁcing for mathematical rigor. Numerical examples for time-T map of 3D ODE and a 3D Poincar´e map for 4D ODE are presented for comparison between existing and proposed methods
Characterization of Bacteriocin Produced by Bacillus subtilis 11A Isolated from the Gastrointestinal Tract of Indonesian Native Chicken (Gallus domesticus)

The purpose of this study was to characterize bacteriocins produced by Bacillus subtilis 11A isolated from Indonesian native chicken’s ileum . Characterization of bacteriocins included antimicrobial activity, the stability to temperature, pH, and storage time. Antimicrobial activity was tested against Escherichia coli FNCC 0091 , Salmonella typhimurium FNCC 0134, and Staphylococcus aureus FNCC 0143. Stability to temperature was tested to 4, 30, 70, 80, 90, 100 o C for an hour and 121 o C for 15 min. Stability to pH was tested to pH 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, and 12 for an hour. Stability to storage was tested for 7, 14, 21, and 28 days at refrigerator (4 o C) and room temperature (30 o C). The result showed that bacteriocins produced by Bacillus subtilis 11A were more effective against pathogens Gram-negative ( Escherichia coli and Salmonella typhimurium ) than Gram-positive ( Staphylococcus aureus ) (P<0.05). The bacteriocins produced by Bacillus subtilis 11A were heat until 90 o C, stable at pH 6–10 and stored at refrigerator up to 28 days (P<0.05). This study suggested that this bacteriocins might become potential candidate for use as biodegradable natural fed and alternative antimicrobial agents to solve the increasing trends of problems of antibiotic resistance