Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Hearing impairment and associated socio-demographic characteristics in patients with tinnitus

Background: Tinnitus is a common ear problem and causes various somatic and psychological effects that has a bearing on the quality of life. Considerably high prevalence, distressing nature of the problem and the fact that it is associated with hearing impairment warrants an early recognition and appropriate timely intervention.Methods: A total of 120 patients (60 with tinnitus and 60 without tinnitus) were included in the study. Data of putative socio-demographic factors and clinical examination findings were collected on a semi-structured questionnaire.Results: The mean age of patients with tinnitus was 38.12±13.39 while that of patients without tinnitus was 40.85±15.26 (p=0.299). Around two-thirds (63.33%, 95% CI, 51.3–75.7%) of patients with tinnitus were males and the other one-third (36.67%, 95% CI, 24.3–48.7%) were females. Two-thirds (66.7%, 95% CI, 54.6–76.7%) of patients with tinnitus belonged to urban locality and the remaining one-third (33.3%, 95% CI, 23.3–45.4%) were from rural areas. On pure tone audiometry (PTA), hearing impairment was detected in 32 (53.3%, 95% CI, 42.0–68.3%) patients with tinnitus as compared to 13 (21.7%, 95% CI, 9.3–35.4%) patients without tinnitus.Conclusions: Tinnitus was associated with hearing loss in considerable proportion irrespective of patients’ own awareness of hearing loss. Therefore, patients should be educated regarding importance of seeking early healthcare. Although the benefits of available treatments are small, and the perception of tinnitus does not wane completely, it improves quality of life and reduces distress resulting from tinnitus.
Effect of total vapor content on aircraft icing on the data of radiometric measurements in the area of Pulkovo airport

Total vapor content of the atmosphere is a primary factor in diagnosing thermal conditions and determining areas of possible aircraft icing. This study for the period from October 1, 2018 to March 31, 2020, is based the AV-6 electronic weather logs and crew weather reports (PIREP). The paper considers the ranges of the total vapor content Q and total vapor content during icing Qi for the seasons most favorable for the icing occurance. Icing is observed at values of the total vapor content Qi from 0.3 to 1.5 g/cm2.
Improving Reliability Awareness to Support Appropriate Trust and Reliance on Individual Combat Identification Systems

Individual combat identification (CID) systems have been developed to help soldiers distinguish friends from foes in combat situations. However, these automated systems are not perfectly reliable. Previous studies have found that participants often do not rely properly on such systems and consequently their identification performance was not improved by them. We present an experiment that tested the effectiveness of providing aid reliability information to support participants' appropriate trust in and reliance on a CID aid. The results indicated that participants had difficulty in estimating the aid reliability. Participants who were not informed of the aid reliability trusted in and relied on the aid feedback less than those who were aware of the aid reliability. Providing the aid reliability information led to more appropriate reliance on the aid. This research has implications for the design of interfaces for individual CID systems and the training of infantry soldiers.
Association of the Q141K polymorphism of the ABCG2 gene with the effectiveness of urate-lowering therapy in patients with gout (a pilot study)

Achieving the target serum uric acid (UA) level is a priority in the treatment of gout.Objective: to study the relationship of the ABCG2 gene polymorphism (rs2231142) with the efficacy of allopurinol and febuxostat in patients with gout.Patients and methods. The study included 82 patients with gout over 18 years of age with serum UA level >360 μmol/L who did not take uratelowering therapy.All patients were prescribed allopurinol 100 mg daily, followed by its titration until the target UA level was reached (<360 μmol/L or <300 μmol/L in patients with chronic tofus gout), up to a maximum of 900 mg/day, in patients with glomerular filtration rate <60 ml/min/1.73 m2 – up to 300 mg/day. Patients who did not reach the target UA level when using allopurinol were prescribed febuxostat 80 mg/day, which, if necessary, was increased to 120 mg/day. Monitoring of each patient was continued until the target serum UA level was reached.All patients underwent genotyping of the C>A polymorphism (rs2231142) of the ABCG2 gene. We compared the probability of achieving the target UA level, the mean values of a decrease in the serum UA level, and the mean doses of urate-lowering drugs in patients with different genotypes (CC, CA, AA) of the ABCG2 gene.Results and discussion. The target UA level in 45 (55%) of 82 patients was defined as <300 μmol/L, in the remaining 37 – as <360 μmol/L.In 26 patients, the dose of allopurinol did not exceed 300 mg/day. In 28 (34%) patients treated with allopurinol, the target UA level was achieved, in the remaining 54 (66%) patients, allopurinol was substituted by febuxostat, and in 22 (41%) of them the UA level decreased and was below the target.The CC genotype of the ABCG2 gene was detected in 51 (62%) patients, the CA genotype in 30 (37%) and the minor genotype AA in 1 (1%). The probability of achieving the target UA level during therapy with allopurinol in carriers of homozygous CC genotype and genotypes CA or AA did not differ: 17 (33%) and 11 (35%) cases, respectively, but patients with CA and AA genotypes required a significantly higher dose of allopurinol (365±102 mg/day) than patients with the CC genotype (290±85 mg/day), p=0.002. Of the 54 patients who took febuxostat and did not reach the target UA level, 30 (56%) had the CC genotype and 24 (44%) had the CA genotype, the probability of reaching the target UA level was also comparable (p=0.22). Conclusion. The probability of reaching the target serum UA level in patients with gout taking allopurinol is not associated with the C>A polymorphism of the ABCG2 gene, but the presence of CA and AA genotypes is identified with a higher dose of the drug. The C>A (rs2231142) polymorphism of the ABCG2 gene does not affect the ability to achieve the goal of therapy when using febuxostat in patients with allopurinol ineffectiveness.
Simple method for speed and rotor resistance estimation of induction machines

An approach to estimate the speed and rotor resistance of an induction machine from measured terminal voltages and currents is described. In this approach, the speed and rotor resistance are considered to be unknown constants, because the speed and rotor resistance change slowly compared to the electrical variables such as currents and fluxes. Based on this assumption, a new speed and rotor resistance estimator is defined and its performance is analysed and verified experimentally.
Method of selecting design earthquake ground motions for tall buildings

In most current seismic design procedures, an earthquake hazard of the design earthquake load is usually defined as a 10% probability of exceedance in 50 years. However, tall buildings and emergency hazard facilities need to be safe against more severe ground shakings than code-defined design earthquake hazards. Earthquake hazard can be expressed by a 5% damped Linear Elastic Design Response Spectrum (LEDRS) obtained from statistical research using spectral responses of selected EarthQuake Ground Motion (EQGM). In tall buildings that have severe irregularity in plan and elevation or have long natural periods, the use of EQGM records as input loads is recommended instead of using LEDRS. The objectives of this study are to determine the LEDRS considering return periods and to calibrate the EQGM records for making their response spectra fit the determined LEDRS. The parameters of calibration for selecting the EQGMs are investigated. In this study 22, 14 and 8 EQGMs are selected for S1, S2, S3 soil sites, respectively. Selected EQGM records from this study can be used for time-history analysis as an input earthquake load, especially for low and moderate seismic zone. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Increased Plasma Soluble PD-1 Concentration Correlates with Disease Progression in Patients with Cancer Treated with Anti-PD-1 Antibodies

Immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs) confer remarkable therapeutic benefits to patients with various cancers. However, many patients are non-responders or develop resistance following an initial response to ICIs. There are no reliable biomarkers to predict the therapeutic effect of ICIs. Therefore, this study investigated the clinical implications of plasma levels of soluble anti-programmed death-1 (sPD-1) in patients with cancer treated with ICIs. In total, 22 patients (13 with non-small-cell lung carcinoma, 8 with gastric cancer, and 1 with bladder cancer) were evaluated for sPD-1 concentration using enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays for diagnostic and anti-PD-1 antibody analyses. sPD-1 levels were low before the administration of anti-PD-1 antibodies. After two and four cycles of anti-PD-1 antibody therapy, sPD-1 levels significantly increased compared with pretreatment levels (p = 0.0348 vs. 0.0232). We observed an increased rate of change in plasma sPD-1 concentrations after two and four cycles of anti-PD-1 antibody therapy that significantly correlated with tumor size progression (p = 0.024). sPD-1 may be involved in resistance to anti-PD-1 antibody therapy, suggesting that changes in sPD-1 levels can identify primary ICI non-responders early in treatment. Detailed analysis of each cancer type revealed the potential of sPD-1 as a predictive biomarker of response to ICI treatment in patients with cancer.
Thirty years of BASICS: Dissemination and implementation progress and challenges.

The first clinical trial of the Brief Alcohol Screening and Intervention for College Students (BASICS) was launched at the University of Washington in 1990. Since that time, multiple trials have demonstrated the efficacy of BASICS and related approaches in a variety of young adult populations and this information has been widely disseminated. However, in practice BASICS implementation varies considerably, including formats and mediums (e.g., group, telehealth, written/electronic feedback alone) not studied in the original research. Even if delivered in an individual in-person format, implementation can stray substantially from the original design. Adaptations may be necessary to address campus resource constraints or other barriers to implementation but can have unknown impacts on intervention effectiveness. Thus, despite wide-scale efforts to disseminate and implement BASICS, challenges remain, and there are several critical research gaps that need to be addressed to support campuses in implementing BASICS successfully. The current manuscript reviews several ways in which BASICS has been adapted to address these challenges, and provides recommendations for best implementation practices as well as future research needed to improve implementation and effectiveness of BASICS going forward. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).
Ternary Logic with Stateful Neural Networks Using a Bilayered TaO X ‐Based Memristor Exhibiting Ternary States

A memristive stateful neural network allowing complete Boolean in‐memory computing attracts high interest in future electronics. Various Boolean logic gates and functions demonstrated so far confirm their practical potential as an emerging computing device. However, spatio‐temporal efficiency of the stateful logic is still too limited to replace conventional computing technologies. This study proposes a ternary‐state memristor device (simply a ternary memristor) for application to ternary stateful logic. The ternary‐state implementable memristor device is developed with bilayered tantalum oxide by precisely controlling the oxygen content in each oxide layer. The device can operate 157 ternary logic gates in one operational clock, which allows an experimental demonstration of a functionally complete three‐valued Łukasiewicz logic system. An optimized logic cascading strategy with possible ternary gates is ≈20% more efficient than conventional binary stateful logic, suggesting it can be beneficial for higher performance in‐memory computing.
The Prevalence of Work Related Musculoskeletal Disorders Among Workers Performing Industrial Repetitive Tasks in the Automotive Manufacturing Companies

Work related musculoskeletal disorders (WMSDs) is one of the major occupational injuries. WMSDs are associated with repetitive tasks. In the automotive industry, there are many jobs that still require workers to perform repetitive tasks and expose to the risk of injury due to WMSDs. The purpose of this study is to investigate the prevalence of WMSDs among workers performing industrial repetitive tasks in the automotive industry. The result is important to investigate the effect of WMSDs risk on the work productivity. This survey is the preliminary study to investigate the work productivity associated with WMSDs. The Standardized Nordic Musculoskeletal Questionnaires (NMQ) were distributed to the selected automotive manufacturing companies. The results found that the highest prevalence of MSDs for the last twelve months was on the neck (49.3%), followed by hand/wrist (48.0%) and shoulder (46.7%). The overall prevalence of MSDs among the workers was at a high rate (76.97%). In conclusion, the workers performing industrial repetitive tasks in the automotive manufacturing companies are exposed to the risk of WMSDs especially on the upper limb region that could lead to upper limb musculoskeletal disorders.
Analysis of Damping Components of Roll Resistant Specific Hydraulically Interconnected Suspension System

This paper presents a full-car model of vehicle fitted with roll resistant specific HIS system in order to research the coordination of the main modals of sprung mass. Based on the transfer matrix method and state space method, the mechanical and hydraulic coupled multi-body dynamic equation is derived. The eigenvalue and eigenvector is solved by eigenvalue iteration identification method of frequency-dependent characteristic. By discussing the characteristic of the damping components which are the dominant parameters of the coupled system, an innovative design approach of damping components of the HIS system is proposed. Finally, comparison of vehicle vibration is carried out between vehicle with traditional suspension and that fitted with roll resistant specific HIS system. The obtained result indicates that with the proposed design approach of damping components, the roll resistant specific HIS system can promote the capacity of anti-rollover specific observably with reasonable comfort performance.
Balloon Animal Robots: Reconfigurable Isoperimetric Inflated Soft Robots

This paper introduces a new class of soft reconfigurable robot: balloon animal robots. The balloon animal robot consists of a closed volume inflatable tube which can be reconfigured into structures of varying topology by a collective of simple sub-unit robots. The robotic sub-units can (1) drive along the length of the tube to localize a joint, (2) create pinch points that locally reduce the bending stiffness of the tube to form a joint, and (3) selectively mechanically couple to one another through cable driven actuators to create nodes of the structure. In this work we introduce the hardware necessary to construct the robot, present experiments to guide the hardware design, and formulate an algorithm using graph theory to calculate the number of nodes and node connections needed to form different 2D shapes. Finally, we demonstrate the system with two active nodes and four passive nodes forming multiple 2D shapes from the same hardware.
Capabilities of Multiapplicator Systems for Focussed Hyperthermia

Features of the randomly phased scheme and the constructive interference approach for focussed applicator systems are evaluated and compared from a practical point of view. A mathematical expression is given to estimate the depth location of a focal point that depends on the number of array elements. Constraints are indicated that limit the physical construction of such arrays and allow their application only for special purposes.
Individualized isometric neuromuscular electrical stimulation training promotes myonuclear accretion in mouse skeletal muscle

Skeletal muscle is a plastic tissue that adapts to exercise through fusion of muscle stem cells (MuSCs) with myofibers, a physiological process referred to as myonuclear accretion. However, it is still unclear whether myonuclear accretion is driven by increased mechanical loading per se, or occurs, at least in part, in response to exercise-induced muscle injury. Here, we developed a carefully monitored and individualized neuromuscular electrical stimulation (NMES) training protocol of the mouse plantar flexor muscles. Each NMES training session consisted of 80 isometric contractions at a submaximal mechanical intensity corresponding to ~ 15% of maximal tetanic force to avoid muscle damage. NMES trained mice were stimulated for 2 × 3 consecutive days separated by one day of rest, for a total of 6 sessions. Experiments were conducted on C57BL/6J and BALB/c males at 10-12 weeks of age. NMES led to a robust myonuclear accretion and higher MuSC content in gastrocnemius muscle of both mouse lines, without overt signs of muscle damage/regeneration or muscle hypertrophy or force improvement. This new mouse model of myonuclear accretion relying on the main function of skeletal muscles, i.e., force production in response to electrical stimuli, will be of utmost interest to further understand the role of MuSCs in skeletal muscle adaptations.
A Spatial Econometric Analysis of Air Pollutant Concentrations and Economic Growth on Public Health: Empirical Evidence from Central Asian Countries

Air pollution of the countries of Central Asia has affected not only the health of the population since 1990 but also influenced the environment. This study has been made empirically analyzes the spatial autocorrelation analysis that is based on the 1991 to 2017 database of Central Asian countries on the socio-economic factors influencing the concentration of Sulfur Dioxide (SO2), Carbon Monoxide (CO), Nitrogen Dioxide (NO2), Ozone (O3), and Particulate Matter (PM2.5) in the air. Besides, this study validated Global Moran's I statistics to determine spatial positive autocorrelations. The results show that there is a strong correlation between air pollution concentrations and Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita. The achievement identified that the concentrations of SO2, CO, NO2, O3, and PM2.5 have a spatial aggregation and distribution effect, which is significantly influenced by the spatial characteristics and the Central Asian Regional Economic Unions. It also determined that an energy policy of a country can be affected the emissions of air pollutants from neighboring countries due to policy effects. Therefore, there is a need for regional coordination of environmental policies and the transfer of pollution-intensive industries, to keep air pollution in countries of Central Asia at a normal level. In addition to the empirical results of this study, the following two conclusions can be identified. First, it identified the need for a unified policy to reduce air pollution to reduce emissions from air pollution sources. Second, there is a need for a renewable energy policy for the development and promotion of renewable energy.
Spatial and temporal processing for Global Navigation Satellite Systems: the GPS receiver paradigm

We address the problem of navigation data demodulation by an adaptive GPS receiver that utilizes a bank of single-satellite linear-tap-delay filters and employs antenna-array reception. The presence of an antenna array allows the receiver to operate in the spatial domain in addition to the temporal (code) domain. We investigate disjoint-domain as well as joint-domain space-time GPS signal processing techniques and we consider design criteria of conventional matched-filter (MF) type, minimum-mean-square-error (MMSE), minimum-variance-distortionless-response (MVDR) type and auxiliary-vector (AV) type. The proposed structures utilize filters that operate at a fraction of the navigation data bit period (1 ms) and are followed by hard-decision detectors. Hard decisions taken over a navigation data bit period (20 ms) are then combined according to a simple combining rule for further bit-error-rate (BER) performance improvements. Analytic, numerical, and simulation comparisons illustrate the relative merits of the investigated receiver design alternatives.
Evidence From Galactic Cosmic Rays That the Sun Has Likely Entered a Secular Minimum in Solar Activity

Since the beginning of the space age, the Sun has been in a multi‐cycle period of elevated activity (secular maximum). This secular maximum is the longest in the last 9300 years. Since the end of solar cycle 21 (SC21), however, the Sun has shown a decline in overall activity, which has remarkably increased the fluxes of galactic cosmic rays (GCRs). Here, we investigate the correlation between the modulation of GCRs, the heliospheric magnetic field, and solar wind speed for the last 24 solar cycles to find trends that can potentially be used to predict future solar activity. Specifically, we develop a tool for predicting future magnetic field intensity, based on the hysteresis in the GCR variation, during the last phases of the current cycle. This method estimates that SC25 will be as weak as or weaker than SC24. This would mean that the Sun has likely entered a secular minimum, which, according to historical records, should last for another two cycles (SC25 and SC26).
CFAR BI detector for Mariner targets in time domain for bistatic forward scattering radar

One original structure of the CFAR detector and parameter estimator of moving marine targets in conditions of natural interference using Bistatic Forward Scattering Radar (FSR) are presented in this paper. The specific one dimensional MTI CFAR processor with K/M-L batch processor and parameter estimator for a marine target with unknown size are investigated on the base of real data records that have been obtained by the team of the Birmingham University using Forward Scattering Radar.
Gender division of housework during the COVID-19 pandemic: Temporary shocks or durable change?

BACKGROUND First evidence shows that lockdown and confinement measures were associated with a more egalitarian gender division of housework in the United Kingdom. However, we know little about how the gender division of housework adjusted in different phases of the pandemic. OBJECTIVE We ask: (1) How did the gender division of housework change with the first national lockdown in March 2020? (2) Did observed changes persist when the lockdown measures were lifted or did couples revert to the gender division of housework observed before lockdown? METHODS We describe changes in the share of housework done by women before, during, and after the first lockdown using data from the Understanding Society COVID-19 study and employing fixed effects regression for couples with pre-school or school age children and couples without children living at home. RESULTS The lockdown measures affected the gender division of housework with differential effects by the age of the youngest child in the household. After the initial shock, couples with younger children and couples with school-age children reverted to their pre-pandemic gender division of housework. However, couples without children living at home sustained a more equal share of housework. CONCLUSIONS Like other shocks to the division of labor, couples tend to adapt to new circumstances, sustaining previous patterns of within household inequality. Initial signs of increasing gender equality at the start of the pandemic had already started to vanish for some by September 2020.