bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Comparative efficacy of 12 non-drug interventions on non-specific chronic low back pain in nurses: A systematic review and network meta-analysis
Authors: Sun Weige , Zhang Haijiao , Lv Chenxu , Tang Limei , Tian Suzhai
Published: April 2021

BACKGROUND: Many non-drug interventions for decreasing non-specific chronic low back pain (NSCLBP) in nurses have been extensively studied, but the most effective approach is still unclear. OBJECTIVE: This systematic review and network meta-analysis evaluated the efficacies of 12 non-drug interventions in reducing NSCLBP in nurses. METHODS: PubMed, ScienceDirect, Web of Science, Cochrane, EMBASE, CINAHL, Medline, WANFANG, VIP, China Knowledge Integrated, and SinoMed were searched from their establishment to July 2019. Randomized controlled trials (RCTs) comparing non-drug interventions for NSCLBP in nurses were included and analyzed using Stata v15 statistical software. RESULTS: A total of 31 RCTs (n= 7116) and 12 non-drug interventions were included. The first three results with the highest surface areas under the curve ranking area (SUCRAs) were low back exercise plus healthy education, single low back exercise, and yoga (SUCRAs: 79.4%, 76.2%, and 75.1%, respectively). In addition, single yoga was inferior to protective equipment (standardized mean difference [SMD] = 3.88, 95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.92 to 6.84) and multidisciplinary intervention (SMD =-4.06, 95% CI: -7.33 to -0.78). CONCLUSIONS: Low back exercise plus health education may be the best approach to reduce NSCLBP in nurses. Considering the heterogeneity, our findings need to be confirmed in future multicenter large sample RCTs in different countries.
Are there any changes in strength after the application of Kinesio taping in lateral epicondylalgia?
Authors: Martínez-Beltrán María Jesús , Rodríguez-Sanz David , Pérez-Mallada Néstor
Published: April 2021

BACKGROUND: In 1973, Dr. Kenzo Kase developed Kinesio taping from the hypothesis that this external component could aid the functions of muscles and other tissues. There are different studies on this issue, but none has completely clarified the research question. OBJECTIVE: To study the application of Kinesio taping in the variation of isometric muscle strength of the hand extension and grip, isokinetic strength of the pronation and supination movements, and the time it takes to reach that strength in patients with lateral epicondylalgia. METHODS: An analytical, experimental, randomized study was carried out with 104 subjects with lateral epicondylalgia. The subjects were randomly distributed among two groups: one received Kinesio taping and the other a placebo material. A pre- and post-intervention measurement was performed. The post-measurement was carried out 24 hours later so as to completely eliminate the fatigue effect produced by the first day measurements, as well as to ensure that the intervention was effective, and not immediate. The measurements were made using a dynamometer. RESULTS: No significant differences were found between the application of Kinesio taping and placebo material in subjects with lateral epicondylalgia regarding the variation of muscle strength in any of the study variables (p> 0.05 for all studied variables). CONCLUSIONS: Kinesio taping produces no change in strength after application and exerts an effect similar to that of a placebo.
Homeobox-A13 acts as a functional prognostic and diagnostic biomarker via regulating P53 and Wnt signaling pathways in lung cancer
Authors: Wang Yang , He Bo , Dong Yan , He Gong-Jing , Qi Xiao-Wei , Li Yan , Yang Yi-Fei , Rao Yu , Cen Zhong-Shun , Han Fei , Ding Jun , Li Jian-Jun
Published: April 2021

BACKGROUND: The prognosis of lung cancer patients is poor without useful prognostic and diagnostic biomarker. To search for novel prognostic and diagnostic markers, we previously found homeobox-A13 (HOXA13) as a promising candidate in lung cancer. OBJECTIVE: To determine the precisely clinical feature, prognostic and diagnostic value, possible role and mechanism of HOXA13. METHODS: Gene-expression was explored by real-time quantitative-PCR, western-blot and tissue-microarray. The associations were analyzed by Chi-square test, Kaplan-Meier and Cox-regression. The roles and mechanisms were evaluated by MTS, EdU, transwell, xenograft tumor and luciferase-reporter assays. RESULTS: HOXA13 expression is increased in tumors, and correlated with age of patients. HOXA13 expression is associated with unfavorable overall survival and relapse-free survival of patients in four cohorts. Interestingly, HOXA13 has different prognostic significance in adenocarcinoma (ADC) and squamous-cell carcinoma (SCC), and is a sex- and smoke-related prognostic factor only in ADC. Importantly, HOXA13 can serve as a diagnostic biomarker for lung cancer, especially for SCC. HOXA13 can promote cancer-cell proliferation, migration and invasion in vitro, and facilitate tumorigenicity and tumor metastasis in vivo. HOXA13 acts the oncogenic roles on tumor growth and metastasis by regulating P53 and Wnt/β-catenin signaling activities in lung cancer. CONCLUSIONS: HOXA13 is a new prognostic and diagnostic biomarker associated with P53 and Wnt/β-catenin signaling pathways.
A directed link prediction method using graph convolutional network based on social ranking theory
Authors: Wu Zheng , Chen Hongchang , Zhang Jianpeng , Liu Shuxin , Huang Ruiyang , Pei Yulong
Published: April 2021

Graph convolutional networks (GCN) have recently emerged as powerful node embedding methods in network analysis tasks. Particularly, GCNs have been successfully leveraged to tackle the challenging link prediction problem, aiming at predicting missing links that exist yet were not found. However, most of these models are oriented to undirected graphs, which are limited to certain real-life applications. Therefore, based on the social ranking theory, we extend the GCN to address the directed link prediction problem. Firstly, motivated by the reciprocated and unreciprocated nature of social ties, we separate nodes in the neighbor subgraph of the missing link into the same, a higher-ranked and a lower-ranked set. Then, based on the three kinds of node sets, we propose a method to correctly aggregate and propagate the directional information across layers of a GCN model. Empirical study on 8 real-world datasets shows that our proposed method is capable of reserving rich information related to directed link direction and consistently performs well on graphs from numerous domains.
A novel krill herd algorithm with orthogonality and its application to data clustering
Authors: Zhao Chen , Liu Zhongxin , Chen Zengqiang , Ning Yao
Published: April 2021

Krill herd algorithm (KHA) is an emerging nature-inspired approach that has been successfully applied to optimization. However, KHA may get stuck into local optima owing to its poor exploitation. In this paper, the orthogonal learning (OL) mechanism is incorporated to enhance the performance of KHA for the first time, then an improved method named orthogonal krill herd algorithm (OKHA) is obtained. Compared with the existing hybridizations of KHA, OKHA could discover more useful information from historical data and construct a more promising solution. The proposed algorithm is applied to solve CEC2017 numerical problems, and its robustness is verified based on the simulation results. Moreover, OKHA is applied to tackle data clustering problems selected from the UCI Machine Learning Repository. The experimental results illustrate that OKHA is superior to or at least competitive with other representative clustering techniques.
Unsupervised latent event representation learning and storyline extraction from news articles based on neural networks
Authors: Si Jiasheng , Guo Linsen , Zhou Deyu
Published: April 2021

Storyline extraction aims to generate concise summaries of related events unfolding over time from a collection of temporally-ordered news articles. Some existing approaches to storyline extraction are typically built on probabilistic graphical models that jointly model the extraction of events and the storylines from news published in different periods. However, their parameter inference procedures are often complex and require a long time to converge, which hinders their use in practical applications. More recently, a neural network-based approach has been proposed to tackle such limitations. However, event representations of documents, which are important for the quality of the generated storylines, are not learned. In this paper, we propose a novel unsupervised neural network-based approach to extract latent events and link patterns of storylines jointly from documents over time. Specifically, event representations are learned by a stacked autoencoder and clustered for event extraction, then a fusion component is incorporated to link the related events across consecutive periods for storyline extraction. The proposed model has been evaluated on three news corpora and the experimental results show that it outperforms state-of-the-art approaches with significant improvements.
An attention network based on feature sequences for cross-domain sentiment classification
Authors: Meng Jiana , Dong Yu , Long Yingchun , Zhao Dandan
Published: April 2021

The difficulty of cross-domain text sentiment classification is that the data distributions in the source domain and the target domain are inconsistent. This paper proposes an attention network based on feature sequences (ANFS) for cross-domain sentiment classification, which focuses on important semantic features by using the attention mechanism. Particularly, ANFS uses a three-layer convolutional neural network (CNN) to perform deep feature extraction on the text, and then uses a bidirectional long short-term memory (BiLSTM) to capture the long-term dependency relationship among the text feature sequences. We first transfer the ANFS model trained on the source domain to the target domain and share the parameters of the convolutional layer; then we use a small amount of labeled target domain data to fine-tune the model of the BiLSTM layer and the attention layer. The experimental results on cross-domain sentiment analysis tasks demonstrate that ANFS can significantly outperform the state-of-the-art methods for cross-domain sentiment classification problems.
Regression trees with splitting based on changes of dependencies among covariates
Authors: Boskabadi Mostafa , Doostparast Mahdi
Published: April 2021

Regression trees are powerful tools in data mining for analyzing data sets. Observations are usually divided into homogeneous groups, and then statistical models for responses are derived in the terminal nodes. This paper proposes a new approach for regression trees that considers the dependency structures among covariates for splitting the observations. The mathematical properties of the proposed method are discussed in detail. To assess the accuracy of the proposed model, various criteria are defined. The performance of the new approach is assessed by conducting a Monte-Carlo simulation study. Two real data sets on classification and regression problems are analyzed by using the obtained results.
Cross-modal variable-length hashing based on hierarchy
Authors: Qi Xiaojun , Zeng Xianhua , Wang Shumin , Xie Yicai , Xu Liming
Published: April 2021

Due to the emergence of the era of big data, cross-modal learning have been applied to many research fields. As an efficient retrieval method, hash learning is widely used frequently in many cross-modal retrieval scenarios. However, most of existing hashing methods use fixed-length hash codes, which increase the computational costs for large-size datasets. Furthermore, learning hash functions is an NP hard problem. To address these problems, we initially propose a novel method named Cross-modal Variable-length Hashing Based on Hierarchy (CVHH), which can learn the hash functions more accurately to improve retrieval performance, and also reduce the computational costs and training time. The main contributions of CVHH are: (1) We propose a variable-length hashing algorithm to improve the algorithm performance; (2) We apply the hierarchical architecture to effectively reduce the computational costs and training time. To validate the effectiveness of CVHH, our extensive experimental results show the superior performance compared with recent state-of-the-art cross-modal methods on three benchmark datasets, WIKI, NUS-WIDE and MIRFlickr.
Exploratory evaluation of muscle strength and skin surface temperature responses to contemporary cryotherapy modalities in sport
Authors: Alexander Jill , Selfe James , Greenhalgh Olivia , Rhodes David
Published: April 2021

BACKGROUND:

The effects of contemporary cryo-compression devices on function are limited compared to traditional applications of cooling. Development of cooling protocols are warranted.

OBJECTIVE:

To investigate the effects of three different cryo-compressive modalities applied at the knee on the isokinetic strength of the quadriceps over a re-warming period.

METHODS:

Eleven healthy male participants took part (23 [Formula: see text] 14 years; 78.3 [Formula: see text] 14.5 Kg; 180 [Formula: see text] 9.5 cm) randomly assigned to receive all modalities (Game Ready[Formula: see text] (GR), Swellaway[Formula: see text] (SA), Wetted Ice (WI)) applied for 15-min, separated by 1-week. Skin surface temperature (T[Formula: see text]) via thermography and the concentric peak moment (PM) of the quadriceps at 60 and 180[Formula: see text]/s were collected pre-, immediately-post and at 20-min post-intervention.

RESULTS:

Significant reductions occurred in T[Formula: see text] across all timepoints for all modalities ([Formula: see text] 0.05). Significant reductions in PM for WI were noted across all timepoints and PM for GR and SA immediately-post ([Formula: see text] 0.05) only.

CONCLUSION:

Precaution for immediately returning to sport following cryotherapy is required and influenced by type of cooling on muscle strength responses. Alternate targeted treatment modalities to minimise deferred deleterious effects on muscle strength may be considered. Research into length of application, periodisation and location is warranted for the development of such contemporary cryo-compressive modalities in applied practice.
The CERAD Neuropsychological Battery in Patients with Idiopathic Normal Pressure Hydrocephalus Compared with Normal Population and Patients with Mild Alzheimer’s Disease
Authors: Nerg Ossi , Junkkari Antti , Hallikainen Ilona , Rauramaa Tuomas , Luikku Antti , Hiltunen Mikko , Jääskeläinen Juha E. , Leinonen Ville , Hänninen Tuomo , Koivisto Anne
Published: April 2021

Background: The usefulness of CERAD Neuropsychological Battery for describing the cognitive impairment in idiopathic normal pressure hydrocephalus (iNPH) is unknown. Objective: To compare the cognitive profile of patients with iNPH to patients with mild Alzheimer’s disease (AD) and age-matched cognitively healthy individuals by using the CERAD-NB. Methods: We studied CERAD-NB subtest results, including the Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE), between 199 patients with probable iNPH, 236 patients with mild AD, and 309 people with normal cognition, using age, education, and gender adjusted multivariate linear regression model. In addition, the effects of AD-related brain pathology detected in frontal cortical brain biopsies in iNPH patients’ cognitive profiles were examined. Results: The iNPH patients performed worse than cognitively healthy people in all CERAD-NB subtests. Despite similar performances in the MMSE, AD patients outperformed iNPH patients in Verbal Fluency (p = 0.016) and Clock Drawing (p < 0.001) tests. However, iNPH patients outperformed AD patients in the Boston Naming Test and Word List Recall and Recognition (p < 0.001). AD-related pathology in brain biopsies did not correlate with the CERAD-NB results. Conclusion: At the time of the iNPH diagnosis, cognitive performances differed from cognitively healthy people in all CERAD-NB subtests. When the iNPH and AD patients’ results were compared, the iNPH patients performed worse in Verbal Fluency and Clock Drawing tests while the AD group had more pronounced episodic memory dysfunctions. This study demonstrates significant differences in the CERAD-NB subtests between cognitive profiles of iNPH and AD patients. These differences are not captured by the MMSE alone.
Proteome Profiling Identified Amyloid-β Protein Precursor as a Novel Binding Partner and Modulator of VGLUT1
Authors: Zhou Jin-wu , Zhao Man , Rang Wen-liang , Zhang Xiao-yan , Liu Zhen-ming , Zhang Liang-ren , Wang Tong-xing , Wu Chu-Tse , Cheng Xiao-rui , Zhou Wen-xia
Published: April 2021

Background: The toxicity of excessive glutamate release has been implicated in various acute and chronic neurodegenerative conditions. Vesicular glutamate transporters (VGLUTs) are the major mediators for the uptake of glutamate into synaptic vesicles. However, the dynamics and mechanism of this process in glutamatergic neurons are still largely unknown. Objective: This study aimed to investigate the candidate protein partners of VGLUT1 and their regulatory roles in the vesicles in rat brain. Methods: Pull down assay, co-immunoprecipitation assay, or split-ubiquitin membrane yeast two hybrid screening coupled with nanoRPLC-MS/MS were used to identify the candidate protein partners of VGLUT1 in the vesicles in rat brain. The in vitro and in vivo models were used to test effects of AβPP, Atp6ap2, Gja1, and Synataxin on VGLUT1 expression. Results: A total of 255 and 225 proteins and 172 known genes were identified in the pull down assay, co-immunoprecipitation assay, or split-ubiquitin yeast two-hybrid screening respectively. The physiological interactions of SV2A, Syntaxin 12, Gja1, AβPP, and Atp6ap2 to VGLUT1 were further confirmed. Knockdown of Atp6ap2, Gja1, and Synataxin increased VGLUT1 mRNA expression and only knockdown of AβPP increased both mRNA and protein levels of VGLUT1 in PC12 cells. The regulatory function of AβPP on VGLUT1 expression was further confirmed in the in vitro and in vivo models. Conclusion: These results elucidate that the AβPP and VGLUT1 interacts at vesicular level and AβPP plays a role in the regulation of VGLUT1 expression which is essential for maintaining vesicular activities.
Mobile edge server placement based on meta-heuristic algorithm
Authors: Guo Feiyan , Tang Bing , Zhang Jiaming
Published: April 2021

The rapid development of the Internet of Things and 5G networks have generated a large amount of data. By offloading computing tasks from mobile devices to edge servers with sufficient computing resources, network congestion and data transmission delays can be effectively reduced. The placement of edge server is the core of task offloading and is a multi-objective optimization problem with multiple resource constraints. Efficient placement approach can effectively meet the needs of mobile users to access services with low latency and high bandwidth. To this end, an optimization model of edge server placement has been established in this paper through minimizing both communication delay and load difference as the optimization goal. Then, an Edge Server placement based on meta-Heuristic alGorithM (ESH-GM) has been proposed to achieve multi-objective optimization. Firstly, the K-means algorithm is combined with the ant colony algorithm, and the pheromone feedback mechanism is introduced into the placement of edge servers by emulating the mechanism of ant colony sharing pheromone in the foraging process, and the ant colony algorithm is improved by setting the taboo table to improve the convergence speed of the algorithm. Then, the improved heuristic algorithm is used to solve the optimal placement of edge servers. Experimental results using Shanghai Telecom’s real datasets show that the proposed ESH-GM achieves an optimal balance between low latency and load balancing, while guaranteeing quality of service, which outperforms several existing representative approaches.
A two-stage balancing strategy based on data augmentation for imbalanced text sentiment classification
Authors: Pang Zhicheng , Li Hong , Wang Chiyu , Shi Jiawen , Zhou Jiale
Published: April 2021

In practice, the class imbalance is prevalent in sentiment classification tasks, which is harmful to classifiers. Recently, over-sampling strategies based on data augmentation techniques have caught the eyes of researchers. They generate new samples by rewriting the original samples. Nevertheless, the samples to be rewritten are usually selected randomly, which means that useless samples may be selected, thus adding this type of samples. Based on this observation, we propose a novel balancing strategy for text sentiment classification. Our approach takes word replacement as foundation and can be divided into two stages, which not only can balance the class distribution of training set, but also can modify noisy data. In the first stage, we perform word replacement on specific samples instead of random samples to obtain new samples. According to the noise detection, the second stage revises the sentiment of noisy samples. Toward this aim, we propose an improved term weighting called TF-IGM-CW for imbalanced text datasets, which contributes to extracting the target rewritten samples and feature words. We conduct experiments on four public sentiment datasets. Results suggest that our method outperforms several other resampling methods and can be integrated with various classification algorithms easily.
Contribution of Basal Ganglia to the Sense of Upright: A Double-Blind Within-Person Randomized Trial of Subthalamic Stimulation in Parkinson’s Disease with Pisa Syndrome
Authors: Piscicelli Céline , Castrioto Anna , Jaeger Marie , Fraix Valerie , Chabardes Stephan , Moro Elena , Krack Paul , Debû Bettina , Pérennou Dominic
Published: April 2021

Background: Verticality perception is frequently altered in Parkinson’s disease (PD) with Pisa syndrome (PS). Is it the cause or the consequence of the PS? Objective: We tested the hypothesis that both scenarios coexist. Methods: We performed a double-blind within-person randomized trial (NCT02704910) in 18 individuals (median age 63.5 years) with PD evolving for a median of 17.5 years and PS for 2.5 years and treated with bilateral stimulation of the subthalamus nuclei (STN-DBS) for 6.5 years. We analyzed whether head and trunk orientations were congruent with the visual (VV) and postural (PV) vertical, and whether switching on one or both sides of the STN-DBS could modulate trunk orientation via verticality representation. Results: The tilted verticality perception could explain the PS in 6/18 (33%) patients, overall in three right-handers (17%) who showed net and congruent leftward trunk and PV tilts. Two of the 18 (11%) had an outstanding clinical picture associating leftward: predominant parkinsonian symptoms, whole-body tilt (head –11°, trunk –8°) and transmodal tilt in verticality perception (PV –10°, VV –8.9°). Trunk orientation or VV were not modulated by STN-DBS, whereas PV tilts were attenuated by unilateral or bilateral stimulations if it was applied on the opposite STN. Conclusion: In most cases of PS, verticality perception is altered by the body deformity. In some cases, PS seems secondary to a biased internal model of verticality, and DBS on the side of the most denervated STN attenuated PV tilts with a quasi-immediate effect. This is an interesting track for further clinical studies.
Current Update on Clinically Relevant Sleep Issues in Parkinson’s Disease: A Narrative Review
Authors: Suzuki Keisuke
Published: April 2021

Sleep disturbances are among the common nonmotor symptoms in patients with Parkinson’s disease (PD). Sleep can be disrupted by nocturnal motor and nonmotor symptoms and other comorbid sleep disorders. Rapid eye movement sleep behavior disorder (RBD) causes sleep-related injury, has important clinical implications as a harbinger of PD and predicts a progressive clinical phenotype. Restless legs syndrome (RLS) and its related symptoms can impair sleep initiation. Excessive daytime sleepiness (EDS) is a refractory problem affecting patients’ daytime activities. In particular, during the COVID-19 era, special attention should be paid to monitoring sleep problems, as infection-prevention procedures for COVID-19 can affect patients’ motor symptoms, psychiatric symptoms and sleep. Therefore, screening for and managing sleep problems is important in clinical practice, and the maintenance of good sleep conditions may improve the quality of life of PD patients. This narrative review focused on the literature published in the past 10 years, providing a current update of various sleep disturbances in PD patients and their management, including RBD, RLS, EDS, sleep apnea and circadian abnormalities.
Spatial identification of component-based relative risks
Authors: Kadhem Safaa K.
Published: April 2021

This article aims at identifying the high risk provinces in Iraq using a finite Poisson mixture. Through this methodology, the levels of relative risk is determined through identifying the number of components. In this article we do not investigate spatial correlation among regions and assume that the levels of risk observed in different regions are independent each other. The estimation of the model parameters and the model selection are performed using the Bayesian approach which allow to allocate each province to an identified risk level. We consider the data of the Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) infections in 18 provinces in Iraq and determining the levels of relative risks of this pandemic. The results are spatially shown in map which illustrates that the best Bayesian model fitted the data is 3 components model (high, medium and low risk).
Enhanced active VM load balancing algorithm using fuzzy logic and K-means clustering
Authors: Hamdani Mostefa , Aklouf Youcef
Published: April 2021

With the rapid development of data and IT technology, cloud computing is gaining more and more attention, and many users are attracted to this paradigm because of the reduction in cost and the dynamic allocation of resources. Load balancing is one of the main challenges in cloud computing system. It redistributes workloads across computing nodes within cloud to minimize computation time, and to improve the use of resources. This paper proposes an enhanced ‘Active VM load balancing algorithm’ based on fuzzy logic and k-means clustering to reduce the data center transfer cost, the total virtual machine cost, the data center processing time and the response time. The proposed method is realized using Java and CloudAnalyst Simulator. Besides, we have compared the proposed algorithm with other task scheduling approaches such as Round Robin algorithm, Throttled algorithm, Equally Spread Current Execution Load algorithm, Ant Colony Optimization (ACO) and Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO). As a result, the proposed algorithm performs better in terms of service rate and response time.
An evaluation of a shoulder rehabilitation class in a UK hospital following evidence-based modifications
Authors: Kell Emily , Hammond John A. , Andrews Sophie , Germeni Christina , Hingston Helen , Khan Saifur , Shearer Gemma , Weeks Sophie
Published: April 2021

OBJECTIVES: Shoulder pain is a common musculoskeletal disorder, which carries a high cost to healthcare systems. Exercise is a common conservative management strategy for a range of shoulder conditions and can reduce shoulder pain and improve function. Exercise classes that integrate education and self-management strategies have been shown to be cost-effective, offer psycho-social benefits and promote self-efficacy. This study aimed to examine the effectiveness of an 8-week educational and exercise-based shoulder rehabilitation programme following the introduction of evidence-based modifications. METHODS: A retrospective evaluation of a shoulder rehabilitation programme at X Trust was conducted, comparing existing anonymised Shoulder Pain and Disability Index (SPADI) and Patient-Specific Functional Scale (PSFS) scores from two cohorts of class participants from 2017-18 and 2018-19 that were previously collected by the physiotherapy team. Data from the two cohorts were analysed separately, and in comparison, to assess class efficacy. Descriptive data were also analysed from a patient satisfaction survey from the 2018-19 cohort. RESULTS: A total of 47 patients completed the 8-week shoulder rehabilitation programme during the period of data collection (2018-2019). The 2018-19 cohort showed significant improvements in SPADI (p 0.001) and PSFS scores (p 0.001). No significant difference was found between the improvements seen in the 2017-18 cohort and the 2018-19 cohort. 96% of the 31 respondents who completed the patient satisfaction survey felt the class helped to achieve their goals. CONCLUSION: A group-based shoulder rehabilitation class, which included loaded exercises and patient education, led to improvements in pain, disability and function for patients with rotator cuff related shoulder pain (RCRSP) in this outpatient setting, but anticipated additional benefits based on evidence were not observed.
The association between gait analysis measures associated with crouch gait, functional health status and daily activity levels in cerebral palsy
Authors: O’Sullivan Rory , French Helen P. , Van Rossom Sam , Jonkers Ilse , Horgan Frances
Published: April 2021

PURPOSE: The aim of this study was to examine the relationship between gait analysis measures associated with crouch gait, functional health status and daily activity in ambulant cerebral palsy (CP). METHODS: Three-dimensional gait analysis was carried out on 35 ambulant participants with bilateral CP crouch gait (knee flexion at mid-stance (KFMS) ⩾ 190). KFMS, knee-flexion at initial contact, gait speed and step-lengths were extracted for analysis. Steps/day and sedentary time/day were assessed using an ActivPAL accelerometer. Functional health status was assessed using the five relevant domains of the Pediatric Outcomes Data Collection Instrument (PODCI) questionnaire. Associations between variables were assessed with correlation coefficients and multivariable linear regression. RESULTS: There were no significant correlations between KFMS and PODCI domains (ρ=-0.008–0.110) or daily activity (ρ=-0.297–0.237) variables. In contrast, multivariable analysis found that step-length was independently associated with the Sports and Physical Function (p= 0.030), Transfers and Basic Mobility (p= 0.041) and Global Function (< 0.001) domains of the PODCI assessment. Gait speed was independently associated with mean steps/day (p< 0.001). CONCLUSIONS: Step length and gait speed are more strongly associated with functional health status and daily activity than knee flexion during stance in children and adolescents with CP crouch gait.
Influence of polyethylene terephthalate/ polyamide (PET/PA) bilayer structure on physical and strength-related properties of superpressure angioplasty balloons
Authors: Lu Sha , Ji Xiaofei , Yue Bin , Ye Ping , Fan Chongjun , Mao Jifu
Published: April 2021

BACKGROUND: Percutaneous transluminal coronary angioplasty (PTCA), including balloon angioplasty, is a standard clinical invasive treatment for coronary artery disease. The coronary lesion with calcification is difficult to dilate and the prevention of balloon failure is especially important. OBJECTIVE: A novel superpressure balloon was fabricated with bilayered structure of polyethylene terephthalate (PET) and PA12 (polyamide). METHODS: The structures of bilayer balloon were adjusted to achieve overall excellent performance. Physicochemical, thermal and mechanical properties of bilayer balloons were characterized by X-ray diffraction, differential scanning calorimeter, hydraulic tester and theoretical simulation. RESULTS: Compared with pure PA12 and PET balloons, PA12 outer layer: PET inner layer balloon with layer ratio of 3:7 shows the highest burst stress and relatively low compliance due to an increase in crystallinity and orientation. CONCLUSIONS: The produced bilayer balloon proved to possess a small folding dimension thanks to its ultrathin bilayer structure, which is good for crossing cramped vessels. We believe these optimally fabricated bilayer balloons are proved to provide attractive opportunities for preparation, performance enhancement, and practical applications of super-pressure balloon catheters and cryoablation balloons, that will significantly promote the development of percutaneous transluminal coronary angioplasty for clinical applications.
Can the risk of epidemic of prediabetes and diabetes in Poland be reduced?
Authors: Pachocka L M
Published: April 2021

ABSTRACT
Prediabetes, i.e. impaired fasting glucose (IFG) and impaired glucose tolerance (IGT), are associated with an increased risk of developing type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular deaths, dementia, and cancer (1-4). According to the recommendations of the Polish Diabetes Association, both pre-diabetes and diabetes are indications for lifestyle modification (5). The joint efforts of many specialists in various fields may slow down this epidemic of the 21st century. The aim of the study is to answer the question “Is it possible to reduce the risk of an epidemic of prediabetes and diabetes in Poland?”

STRESZCZENIE
Stan przedcukrzycowy (prediabetes), czyli nieprawidłowa glikemia na czczo (IFG) oraz nieprawidłowa tolerancja glukozy (IGT) jest związany ze zwiększonym ryzykiem rozwoju cukrzycy typu 2, zgonów z przyczyn sercowonaczyniowych, demencji oraz nowotworów (1-4). Według zaleceń Polskiego Towarzystwa Diabetologicznego zarówno stan przedcukrzycowy, jak i cukrzyca są wskazaniem do modyfikacji stylu życia (5). Wspólne działania wielu specjalistów z różnych dziedzin być może wyhamują tę epidemię XXI wieku.
Celem pracy jest znalezienie odpowiedzi na pytanie „Czy można zmniejszyć ryzyko epidemii stanu przedcukrzycowego i cukrzycy w Polsce?”
The morpho-ethological characteristics of honey bees Apis mellifera L. of Perm region
Authors: Simankov Mihail , Kolbina Lidiya
Published: April 2021

Abstract. The European dark bees (Apis mellifera mellifera L.) divided into many populations occupying a wide range and living in different climatic zones. The research of morphological features of all castes of bee colony, and the description of their ethological features makes it possible to more fully characterize and distinguish a particular group of bees. The aim of the research was to describe the main morphological and some ethological features of queen artificial reproduction, drones, and worker of the European dark bees of the Perm region. Methods. The research was carried out on one of the breeding apiaries of the Perm region on colony of the European dark bees. Morphometric studies were performed according to the standard technique with the use of computer technology. Scientific novelty. For the first time, the morphological and ethological characteristics of honeybees of the Perm region are described most fully. Also experimental study was carried out on the use of a new technology for reproduction of virgin queen bees. Research results and practical significance. In the long-term dynamics, it is shown that the main breed-defining morphometric and ethological characteristics of the studied individuals of all castes of the colony of bee belong to the European dark breed. The results obtained can be used in the identification of bees in the Permian population and the implementation of the selection process in apiaries in the region. New method of artificial breeding of virgin queens allowed to obtain queens corresponding to the standard of the European dark bees and can be applied in practical breeding. Observations were made on the flight activity of drones and flight timing of virgin queen bees, the results of which can be used in practice in the process of obtaining mated queens.
ЦЕНТР УПРАВЛІННЯ КОМПЕТЕНЦІЯМИ: ВИРІШЕННЯ ПРОТИРІЧ ПУБЛІЧНОГО УПРАВЛІННЯ ЗАВДЯКИ ІНФОРМАЦІЙНИМ ТЕХНОЛОГІЯМ
Authors: Дєгтяр Андрій Олегович , Ковальчук Вероніка Геннадіївна , Бублій Максим Петрович
Published: April 2021

Problem statement. The article examines the competence management center as a means of resolving contradictions in public administration. It is determined that the essence of the problem lies in the fact that the introduction of information and communication technologies contributes to the development of a higher level of human thinking and motivation for its actions, and accordingly there are new requirements for the quality standards of public administration, which leads to an aggravation of the contradictions of public administration. The purpose of the study is formation of conceptual bases of creation and functional realization of the center of management of competences for the decision of contradictions of public management which have arisen owing to use of modern information technologies. The object of this research is the contradictions of public administration caused by the use of information technologies and tools and means of their solution. The research uses general scientific and special methods: analysis and synthesis, logical, dialectical, generalization method, complex and systematic approaches. Research methods: in the process of scientific work were used general and special methods of scientific abstraction, induction and deduction, statistical analysis, analogy and quantitative and qualitative comparison. The research hypothesis is the assumption that the contradictions of public administration that are caused by the use of information technologies can be resolved by applying the competence management center. Presentation of the main material. It is found out that the main contradiction of the functioning of the management system is that if there is a significant need to update the public nature of management, the lack of proper mechanisms for attracting the object of management represented by the population of a particular territory to participate in the process of forming alternatives, evaluation criteria, analysis, selection and implementation of management decisions requires a solution. Originality and practical significance of the research. It is proved that the use of modern public management tools (development of e-government technologies; the development of innovative information and communication infrastructure using public-private partnership opportunities; the use of a political marketing tool; the introduction of foresight, crowdsourcing and public audit technologies) does not contribute effectively enough to resolving the above contradictions. Conclusions and prospects for further research. As a promising tool, a competence management center is proposed, which helps to resolve contradictions that are becoming more acute in the context of the introduction of information and communication technologies.
The Gravitomagnetic Effects in Rapidly Rotating Neutron Stars: A Theoretical Study
Authors: Yasrina Atsnaita , Pramono Nugroho Adi
Published: April 2021

Electromagnetic measurements of a general relativistic gravitomagnetic effect can be done within the conductor embedded in a rotating gravitational object’s spacetime. Neutron stars are rotating gravitational object that have strong magnetic field. The gravitomagnetic effect in a neutron star can be determined from the distribution density in the conductor. Neutron star is assumed as a conductor and it rotates rapidly. The distribution density inside the conductor is obtained from the electromagnetic contravariant tensor and the relativistic rotational speed of the conductor. It has obtained the distribution density inside the conductor for the rapidly rotating neutron star. The results are compared to the slowly rotating neutron star which depends on the angular veolocity and the gravitational field.
Doses de nitrogênio em cobertura e inoculação com Rhizobium tropici na cultura do feijão-vagem
Authors: Viçosi Karen Andreon , Pelá Adilson
Published: April 2021

O objetivo deste experimento foi avaliar a influência de doses de adubação nitrogenada e da inoculação com Rhizobium tropici na nutrição e nodulação do feijão-vagem. O experimento foi conduzido no delineamento inteiramente casualizado, com quatro repetições, no esquema fatorial 5x2 que correspondem, respectivamente, a cinco doses de N em cobertura (0, 30, 60, 90 e 120 kg ha-1) aos 15 dias após a emergência, na ausência e na presença de inoculante rizobiano. Foram avaliados, no estádio de florescimento, a massa seca radicular (MSR), número de nódulos (NN), teor de nitrogênio da parte aérea (TNPA) e eficiência de utilização de nitrogênio (EUN). Todas as variáveis analisadas foram influenciadas somente pela dose de nitrogênio em cobertura, não constatando efeito significativo da inoculação ou da interação entre a dose e a inoculação. O aumento das doses de nitrogênio reduziu a MSR, NN e EUN, que apresentaram maiores médias na ausência de adubação nitrogenada. A inoculação é afetada negativamente pelo uso de adubo nitrogenado. A ausência de adubação nitrogenada de cobertura favorece a nodulação. A adubação de cobertura com nitrogênio aumenta o teor de nitrogênio da parte aérea em doses de até 40 kg ha-1, porém reduz a massa seca radicular, número de nódulos e eficiência de utilização de nitrogênio.
The Proficiency and Familiarity of English in Indian Context
Authors: MEWADEV BRAJESH KUMAR GUPTA “ , ROSHAN MORVE
Published: April 2021

The position of Indian English in the three-way section can also be read by looking at the definitions presented by the authors of each section. Because this language is part of the country's leading institutions. It plays a second language role in the multilingual society (E.g. India, 55 other places). Recognition is acknowledged and efforts are being made to find common features of Indian Indians. As a result of such English variants, it complies with what is acceptable in English for native speakers according to the terms' vocabulary 'and' morph syntax. One should definitely be able to speak in English for having good English vocabulary. If one wants to cross the country for educational or career goals, while the government has intensified its efforts to improve the quality of higher education institutions in India. The number of Indian students seems to prefer to study abroad. Not only is English, which is why but it is also the most spoken language and lingua franca. It is a brilliant language that comes from the interaction of native English and Indians, who spoke their native languages. Nevertheless, right-wing organizations are still trying to promote Hindi, while leaders in other provinces (especially South African regions) are promoting their vernaculars. However, English has a castle in India. In the context of the identification of English as a foreign language, we refer only to the source of the language.
Vietnamese High School Students’ Appraisal of Speaking Problems and Influential Factors
Authors: Ho Pham Vu Phi , Long Than Thanh , Hoa Truong Minh
Published: April 2021

This study was predominantly conducted to examine 280 eleventh-grade students’ appraisal of their speaking problems and potential influential factors at Tay Ninh high school, Vietnam. The data were garnered by 40-item questionnaire copies and analyzed by SPSS 22.0 for descriptive statistics (e.g. mean, standard deviation, and percentages) and inferential statistics (e.g. Beta and significance values). The findings of the study revealed that a greater part of the eleventh graders at this site frequently experienced linguistic problems of accuracy, fluency and appropriateness; alongside, many students also encountered with some non-linguistic problems such as inhibition, nothing to say, low participation, and mother tongue use. These speaking problems derived from two main influential factor domains, including internal (e.g. limited language input and topical knowledge, negative psychological states), and external factors (e.g. pressured performance conditions, rigid ELT curriculum, counter-productive ELT materials, inconvenient classroom environment, teachers’ inflexible roles, fixed teaching methods).
EFL Teachers’ Code-switching in Post Lesson Discussion: A Window into English Supervision
Authors: ALKINDI AlGHALIYA , AHMAD ISMAIL SHEIKH
Published: April 2021

Naturally, code-switching occurs in a normal conversation between bilingual speakers who are familiar with the spoken languages as an intellectual trans-languaging process. A puzzling process, still in a positive way, that has been under the attention of linguists for decades regardless of the ethnographic or geographic characteristics of the spoken languages and/or their speakers. This research study explored this phenomenon from a pedagogical aspect that is directly linked with the Omani teachers of English Language  of Cycle One (C1) Muscat Basic Education Schools (BES) as native speakers of Arabic. For the first time, yet beyond the classroom borders, the issue of code-switching is locally tackled from the continuous professional development outlook; the post lesson discussion (PLD) or as also known, the post classroom observation discussion. Qualitatively, the researchers investigated this controversial phenomenon, in the world of foreign languages, from the perspective of the English Language Supervision; Supervisors and Senior Supervisors, in specific, in relation to its functions and the driving reasons, potential pros and cons and how it could be handled properly. The findings of this case study address future educational implications to the best practices of the PLD interaction language as well as to promote heightened understanding of the C1 EFL teachers’ code-switching nature to manage it for the greater good of their continuous professional development (CPD).
Dynamics of Students’ willingness to Communicate in English during an Online Discussion
Authors: Achmad Ardiansyah Showat , Wijayanto Agus , Asib Abdul
Published: April 2021

A number of studies on WTC have applied various conversational contexts to gain a deeper understanding of students’ WTC. However, there is no study reporting the dynamic nature of one’s WTC during an online oral group discussion. Accordingly, the present study attempted to contribute to the literature of WTC by examining the students’ WTC during an online group discussion. Applying idiodynamic case study, six English-majoring students were recruited. The findings showed that the dynamics of students’ WTC was constructed by psychological, conversational, and linguistic aspects. The use of the internet as the mediator of communication was also found to influence one’s WTC in either positive or negative directions. The analysis showed that the direction of influence of internet on one’s WTC was accounted for by their self-confidence.