bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Immunocompetent cells in durable ventricular assist device-implanted non-ischaemic dilated cardiomyopathy
Authors: Koga-Ikuta Ayumi , Fukushima Satsuki , Ishibashi-Ueda Hatsue , Tadokoro Naoki , Kakuta Takashi , Watanabe Takurya , Fukushima Norihide , Suzuki Ken , Fukui Toshihiro , Fujita Tomoyuki
Published: February 2022

Objective

Because the presence of immunocompetent cells in the myocardium is associated with the pathological stage and/or myocardial viability, we explored relationships between functional recovery after left ventricular assist device implantation and the distribution of immunocompetent cells in non-ischaemic dilated cardiomyopathy patients.

Methods

We reviewed 50 consecutive dilated cardiomyopathy patients implanted with HeartMate II at our institute between April 2013 and December 2018 who were treated with optimal medical therapy during left ventricular assist device support. Patients were stratified by improvement of the left ventricular ejection fraction at 6 months after implantation: ≥ 10% increase (Gr ≥ 10%), 5–10% (Gr 5–10%), and ≤ 5% (Gr ≤ 5%). T cells and macrophages were evaluated in the apical myocardium after left ventricular assist device implantation.

Results

During left ventricular assist device support, 12 patients underwent heart transplantation and 2 patients died. Four patients with Gr ≤ 5% were readmitted because of congestive heart failure, but none with Gr ≥ 10%. Macrophages and T cells in the left ventricular myocardium with Gr ≥ 10% were significantly more present compared to those in other groups.

Conclusions

The distribution of immunocompetent cells in the left ventricular myocardium might predict myocardial viability of this pathology after implantation.
CFD Modeling of the Melting Behavior of a Fayalitic Slag
Authors: Obiso D. , Yasuda K. , Voigt A. D. , Schreiner M. , Massoudi Farid M. , Richter A.
Published: February 2022

The melting behavior of a fayalitic slag was investigated with computational fluid dynamics and validated with experimental data. A heating microscope was employed to perform a typical ash melting behavior (AMB) test, in order to gain information about the melting behavior of the slag. The numerical approach is based on using the volume of fluid (VOF) method, in order to track the interface between the slag and the gas phases, and on the enthalpy–porosity model, in order to simulate the slag as a phase change material (PCM). The combined VOF-PCM model was therefore applied to perform a parameter study on the mushy zone constant $$A_{\rm mushy}$$

A
mushy

, which enters the equations of the enthalpy–porosity sub-model and is an a priori unknown. The goal of the investigation was to determine the correct value for $$A_{\rm mushy}$$

A
mushy

, by comparing the numerical results to the AMB test.
Conditions for Workplace Learning Among Professional ‘Temps’: A Qualitative Study of Temporary Agency Nurses in Sweden
Authors: Berg Jansson Anna , Engström Åsa
Published: February 2022

Adopting a theoretical perspective that acknowledges both formal and informal learning as crucial and emphasises reproductive and developmental learning as complementary, this article analyses and discusses temporary agency nurses’ experiences of working and learning, focusing on conditions for workplace learning. This provides opportunities to address questions about conditions for the integration of work and learning in a work situation characterised by flexibilization and individualisation. More specifically, among individuals moving between different organizational contexts rather than working at ‘a’ (single and stable) workplace provided by the employer. By presenting findings based on a thematic analysis of 21 interviews with individual temporary agency nurses working in Swedish health care, both opportunities and challenges for workplace learning is highlighted. While opportunities for informal learning linked to the movement between various client organizations as well as to nursing as common ground and as valued and recognized competence, is identified, at the same time, challenges connected to both formal and informal learning, are also illuminated. Regarding informal learning, challenges in terms of varied and general support and feedback as well as scarce opportunities and low expectations for the temporary agency nurses’ participation in development work in daily work/at client organizations, is identified. The findings thus also illuminate a risk for temporary agency nurses adjusting to prevailing working conditions rather than engaging in developmental learning. Regarding formal learning, challenges in terms of few opportunities for planned learning activities, is identified. All in all, the findings illuminate conditions for workplace learning for temporary agency nurses as clearly dependent not only on the offers of specific temporary work agencies and client organisations, but also on temporary agency nurses’ interest in and views regarding responsibility for learning, and thus highly varying.
Potential aptitude of four olive cultivars as anticancer and antioxidant agents: oleuropein content
Authors: Rashed Shimaa A. , Saad Tamannouha I. , El-Darier Salama M.
Published: February 2022

Olea europaea L. (olive, Oleaceae) constitutes a source of many bioactive compounds, which have recognized benefits for both human health and technological purposes. The present article was carried out to evaluate the biological activity of oleuropein (an ester of 2-(3,4-dihydroxyphenyl) ethanol (hydroxytyrosol) which has the oleosidic skeleton that is common to the secoiridoid glucosides of Oleaceae). It occurred in leaf extracts of the four olive cultivars (Chemlali, Manzanilla, Picaul and Toffahi) as a source for some anticancer and antioxidant agents and their consequences on the action of Hordeum vulgare (barley). The total phenolic and flavonoid compounds were extracted from olive leaves by ethanol 95% then analyzed by high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC). The study evaluates the anticancer activity of the ethanolic extract of olive leaves against breast and hepatocellular carcinoma cells showing high values. Also, the extract exhibited highly consequence on the antioxidant potentiality of barley which was assessed using the diphenyl picryl hydrazyl method (DDPH). These results pave the way for utilization of olive leaves as a source of natural anticancer and antioxidant agents.
Data analytics and artificial intelligence in predicting length of stay, readmission, and mortality: a population-based study of surgical management of colorectal cancer
Authors: Masum Shamsul , Hopgood Adrian , Stefan Samuel , Flashman Karen , Khan Jim
Published: February 2022

Data analytics and artificial intelligence (AI) have been used to predict patient outcomes after colorectal cancer surgery. A prospectively maintained colorectal cancer database was used, covering 4336 patients who underwent colorectal cancer surgery between 2003 and 2019. The 47 patient parameters included demographics, peri- and post-operative outcomes, surgical approaches, complications, and mortality. Data analytics were used to compare the importance of each variable and AI prediction models were built for length of stay (LOS), readmission, and mortality. Accuracies of at least 80% have been achieved. The significant predictors of LOS were age, ASA grade, operative time, presence or absence of a stoma, robotic or laparoscopic approach to surgery, and complications. The model with support vector regression (SVR) algorithms predicted the LOS with an accuracy of 83% and mean absolute error (MAE) of 9.69 days. The significant predictors of readmission were age, laparoscopic procedure, stoma performed, preoperative nodal (N) stage, operation time, operation mode, previous surgery type, LOS, and the specific procedure. A BI-LSTM model predicted readmission with 87.5% accuracy, 84% sensitivity, and 90% specificity. The significant predictors of mortality were age, ASA grade, BMI, the formation of a stoma, preoperative TNM staging, neoadjuvant chemotherapy, curative resection, and LOS. Classification predictive modelling predicted three different colorectal cancer mortality measures (overall mortality, and 31- and 91-days mortality) with 80–96% accuracy, 84–93% sensitivity, and 75–100% specificity. A model using all variables performed only slightly better than one that used just the most significant ones.
Mobile Big Data in the fight against COVID-19
Authors: Benjamins Richard , Vos Jeanine , Verhulst Stefaan
Published: February 2022

In this editorial, Guest Editors Richard Benjamins (Telefónica), Jeanine Vos (GSMA), and Stefaan Verhulst (Data & Policy Editor-in-Chief) draw insights from a set of peer-reviewed, open access articles in a Data & Policy special collection dedicated to the use of Telco Big Data Analytics for COVID-19.
Hegel's Truth: A Property of Things?
Authors: Giladi Tal Meir
Published: February 2022

In his Encyclopaedia Logic, Hegel affirms that truth is ‘usually’ understood as the agreement of thought with the object, but that in the ‘deeper, i.e. philosophical sense’, truth is the agreement of a content with itself or of an object with its concept. Hegel then provides illustrations of this second sort of truth: a ‘true friend’, a ‘true state’, a ‘true work of art’. Robert Stern has argued that Hegel's ‘deeper’ or ‘philosophical’ truth is close to what Heidegger labelled ‘material’ truth, namely a property attributed to a thing on the basis of the accordance of that thing with its essence. It has since been common to think of Hegel's concept of ‘philosophical’ truth as ‘ontological’, ‘objective’ or ‘material’ in contrast to ‘epistemological’ or ‘propositional’ definitions. In this paper, I wish to add an important nuance to the existing literature on this subject: even though things have a truth-value for Hegel, the latter is always negative. I argue that Hegel's criterion of ‘philosophical’ truth, which is best formulated as ‘agreement with self’, is first and foremost intended to examine the truth-value of thought-determinations. I then argue that even though this criterion may also be applied to examine the truth-value of things (namely, even though things have a truth-value), things never fall under this definition. After reviewing several of Hegel's explicit remarks on the matter, I provide an alternative explanation to those features of Hegel's ‘philosophical’ truth which have led scholars to view it as a truth in things. Especially, I argue that what are generally seen as Hegel's examples (‘true friend’, ‘true state’, ‘true work of art’) are not intended as examples but only as imperfect illustrations of ‘philosophical’ truth.
High-frequency instabilities of Stokes waves
Authors: Creedon Ryan P. , Deconinck Bernard , Trichtchenko Olga
Published: February 2022

Euler's equations govern the behaviour of gravity waves on the surface of an incompressible, inviscid and irrotational fluid of arbitrary depth. We investigate the spectral stability of sufficiently small-amplitude, one-dimensional Stokes waves, i.e. periodic gravity waves of permanent form and constant velocity, in both finite and infinite depth. We develop a perturbation method to describe the first few high-frequency instabilities away from the origin, present in the spectrum of the linearization about the small-amplitude Stokes waves. Asymptotic and numerical computations of these instabilities are compared for the first time, with excellent agreement.
Resolvent-based tools for optimal estimation and control via the Wiener–Hopf formalism
Authors: Martini Eduardo , Jung Junoh , Cavalieri André V.G. , Jordan Peter , Towne Aaron
Published: February 2022

The application of control tools to complex flows frequently requires approximations, such as reduced-order models and/or simplified forcing assumptions, where these may be considered low rank or defined in terms of simplified statistics (e.g. white noise). In this work we propose a resolvent-based control methodology with causality imposed via a Wiener–Hopf formalism. Linear optimal causal estimation and control laws are obtained directly from full-rank, globally stable systems with arbitrary disturbance statistics, circumventing many drawbacks of alternative methods. We use efficient, matrix-free methods to construct the matrix Wiener–Hopf problem, and we implement a tailored method to solve the problem numerically. The approach naturally handles forcing terms with space–time colour; it allows inexpensive parametric investigation of sensor/actuator placement in scenarios where disturbances/targets are low rank; it is directly applicable to complex flows disturbed by high-rank forcing; it has lower cost in comparison to standard methods; it can be used in scenarios where an adjoint solver is not available; or it can be based exclusively on experimental data. The method is particularly well suited for the control of amplifier flows, for which optimal control approaches are typically robust. Validation of the approach is performed using the linearized Ginzburg–Landau equation. Flow over a backward-facing step perturbed by high-rank forcing is then considered. Sensor and actuator placement are investigated for this case, and we show that while the flow response downstream of the step is dominated by the Kelvin–Helmholtz mechanism, it has a complex, high-rank receptivity to incoming upstream perturbations, requiring multiple sensors for control.
Open-channel flow over evolving subaqueous ripples
Authors: Kidanemariam Aman G. , Scherer Markus , Uhlmann Markus
Published: February 2022

We have numerically investigated the turbulent flow and sediment grain motion in an open-channel flow configuration over a subaqueous sediment bed featuring two-dimensional transverse ripples at moderate Reynolds number and super-critical Shields number values. The simulation data, which were generated by means of particle-resolved direct numerical simulation, are the same as in our previous work (Kidanemariam & Uhlmann,J. Fluid Mech., vol. 818, 2017, pp. 716–743). By carefully choosing the computational box sizes, we were able to accommodate single ripple units which form over an initially flat sediment bed at a wavelength equal to the domain length. The ripples then evolve into their asymmetric shape relatively quickly and eventually migrate downstream steadily while maintaining their shape and size. In the present study, using a ripple-conditioned phase-averaging procedure, we are able to obtain novel insights into the evolution of the turbulent flow and particle motion over the bedforms, in particular the spatial structure of the basal shear stress and its relation to the particle flow rate. Our analysis confirms that the boundary shear-stress maximum is located upstream of the ripple crest, while the particle flow rate is essentially in phase with the ripple topology, with an average phase difference between the two in the range of 18–19 particle diameters for the considered parameter values. We were further able to confirm the link between the sediment flux relaxation behaviour and the observed shear-stress/geometry lag, by direct evaluation of the saturation length scale.
Amplitude and wavelength scaling of sinusoidal roughness effects in turbulent channel flow at fixed
Authors: Ganju Sparsh , Bailey Sean C.C. , Brehm Christoph
Published: February 2022

Direct numerical simulations are performed for incompressible, turbulent channel flow over a smooth wall and different sinusoidal wall roughness configurations at a constant$Re_\tau = 720$. Sinusoidal walls are used to study the effects of well-defined geometric features of roughness-amplitude,$a$, and wavelength,$\lambda$, on the flow. The flow in the near-wall region is strongly influenced by both$a$and$\lambda$. Establishing appropriate scaling laws will aid in understanding the effects of roughness and identifying the relevant physical mechanisms. Using inner variables and the roughness function to scale the flow quantities provides support for Townsend's hypothesis, but inner scaling is unable to capture the flow physics in the near-wall region. We provide modified scaling relations considering the dynamics of the shear layer and its interaction with the roughness. Although not a particularly surprising observation, this study provides clear evidence of the dependence of flow features on both$a$and$\lambda$. With these relations, we are able to collapse and/or align peaks for some flow quantities and, thus, capture the effects of surface roughness on turbulent flows even in the near-wall region. The shear-layer scaling supports the hypothesis that the physical mechanisms responsible for turbulent kinetic energy production in turbulent flows over rough walls are greatly influenced by the shear layer and its interaction with the roughness elements. Finally, a semiempirical model is developed to predict the contribution of pressure and skin friction drag on the roughness element based purely on its geometric parameters and the corresponding shear-layer velocity scale.
Inertio–elastic instability of a vortex column
Authors: Roy Anubhab , Garg Piyush , Reddy Jumpal Shashikiran , Subramanian Ganesh
Published: February 2022

We analyse the instability of a vortex column in a dilute polymer solution at large

${{Re}}$

and

${{De}}$

with

${{El}} = {{De}}/{{Re}}$

, the elasticity number, being finite. Here,

${{Re}} = \varOmega _0 a^2/\nu$

and

${{De}} = \varOmega _0 \tau$

are, respectively, the Reynolds and Deborah numbers based on the core angular velocity (

$\varOmega _0$

), the radius of the column (

$a$

), the total (solvent plus polymer) kinematic viscosity (

$\nu = (\mu _s +\mu _p)/\rho$

with

$\mu _s$

and

$\mu _p$

being the solvent and polymer contributions to the viscosity) and the polymeric relaxation time (

$\tau$

). The stability of small-amplitude perturbations in this distinguished limit is governed by the elastic Rayleigh equation whose spectrum is parameterized by

${E} = {{El}}(1-\beta )$

,

$\beta$

being the ratio of the solvent to the solution viscosity. The neglect of the relaxation terms, in the said limit, implies that the polymer solution supports undamped elastic shear waves propagating relative to the base-state flow. Unlike the neutrally stable inviscid case, an instability of the vortex column arises for finite

${E}$

due to a pair of elastic shear waves being driven into a resonant interaction under the differential convection by the irrotational shearing flow outside the core. An asymptotic analysis for the Rankine profile shows the absence of an elastic threshold for this instability. The growth rate is

$O(\varOmega _0)$

for order unity

$E$

, although it becomes transcendentally small for

${E} \ll 1$

, being

$O(\varOmega _0 {E}^2{\rm e}^{-1/{E}^{{1}/{2}}})$

. An accompanying numerical investigation shows that the instability persists for smooth monotonically decreasing vorticity profiles, provided the radial extent of the transition region (from the rotational core to the irrotational exterior) is less than a certain

${E}$

-dependent threshold.
Circular hydraulic jumps: where does surface tension matter?
Authors: Duchesne Alexis , Limat Laurent
Published: February 2022

Recently, an unusual scaling law has been observed in circular hydraulic jumps and has been attributed to a supposed missing term in the local energy balance of the flow (Bhagat et al., J. Fluid Mech., vol. 851, 2018, R5). In this paper, we show that – though the experimental observation is valuable and interesting – this interpretation is presumably not the right one. When transposed to the case of an axial sheet formed by two impinging liquid jets, the assumed principle leads in fact to a velocity distribution in contradiction with the present knowledge for this kind of flow. We show here how to correct this approach by maintaining consistency with surface tension thermodynamics: for Savart–Taylor sheets, when adequately corrected, we recover the well-known

$1/r$

liquid thickness with a constant and uniform velocity dictated by Bernoulli's principle. In the case of circular hydraulic jumps, we propose here a simple approach based on Watson's description of the flow in the central region (Watson, J. Fluid Mech., vol. 20, 1964, pp. 481–499), combined with appropriate boundary conditions on the circular front formed. Depending on the specific condition, we find in turn the new scaling by Bhagat et al. (2018) and the more conventional scaling law found long ago by Bohr et al. (J. Fluid Mech., vol. 254, 1993, pp. 635–648). We clarify here a few situations in which one should hold rather than the other, hoping to reconcile the observations of Bhagat et al. with the present knowledge of circular hydraulic jump modelling. However, the question of a possible critical Froude number imposed at the jump exit and dictating logarithmic corrections to scaling remains an open and unsolved question.
Critical indicators of dynamic stall vortex
Authors: Li Xiao , Feng Li-Hao
Published: February 2022

During a dynamic stall process, various flow structures leave their pressure footprints on a wing surface, through which it is possible to understand the development of different flow stages and predict the critical flow events. Based on a classical airfoil ramp-up pitching motion, proper orthogonal decomposition analysis of pressure on the suction surface is carried out in this study. Accordingly, the surface pressure evolution during dynamic stall is summarized into three basic physical schemas, based on which several real-time critical indicators for predicting the flow events related to the dynamic stall vortex (DSV) are constructed. These critical indicators include the spatial distribution coefficient of pressure (SDCP), the high-order central moment of pressure (HCMP), the location of peak pressure (LPP) and the modulated location of peak pressure (MLPP). These indicators can predict the formation of laminar separation bubbles, DSV initiation, DSV centre position and the detachment of DSV. Therefore, the real-time whole-life monitoring of DSV has been realized. Moreover, the effectiveness of these indicators has also been confirmed under different parameters, and testing using wind tunnel experimental data proves their noise robustness. Studies show that the SDCP and HCMP may also be effective even if only two transducers are used. Finally, a modification method of SDCP based on Z-score standardized pressure is proposed. It is found that the modified SDCP can effectively reduce sensitivity to kinematic parameters and the Reynolds number. The critical indicators in this study can be used as a reference for the standardized mathematical and physical description of DSV evolution, thus laying a foundation for constructing a universal theoretical framework of dynamic stall.
Analysis of turbulent coagulation in a jet with discretised population balance and DNS
Authors: Tsagkaridis Malamas , Rigopoulos Stelios , Papadakis George
Published: February 2022

The objective of the present study is to investigate turbulence–coagulation interaction via direct numerical simulation (DNS) coupled with the population balance equation (PBE). Coagulation is an important process in several environmental and engineering applications involving turbulent flow, including soot formation, gas-phase synthesis of nanoparticles and atmospheric processes, but its interaction with turbulence is not yet fully understood. Particle dynamics can be described by the PBE, whose Reynolds decomposition leads to unclosed terms involving correlations of number density fluctuations. In this work, we employ a discretisation (sectional) method for the solution of the PBE, which is free ofa prioriassumptions regarding the particle size distribution (PSD), and couple it with a DNS for the flow field in order to study the behaviour and significance of the unknown correlations. At present, it is not feasible to resolve the Batchelor scales that result from diffusion at high Schmidt number, hence a unity Schmidt number is employed. The investigation is conducted on a three-dimensional planar jet laden with monodisperse nanoparticles, and coagulation in the free-molecule regime is considered. The correlations due to turbulent fluctuations of the particle number density are calculated at several points in the domain and found to be positive in most cases, except close to the jet break-up. The transport equation for the moments of the PSD is also studied, and it is found that the correlations make a considerable contribution to the time-averaged coagulation source term, up to$20\,\%$on the jet centreline and$40\,\%$close to the edges.
Direct numerical simulation of hypersonic turbulent boundary layers: effect of spatial evolution and Reynolds number
Authors: Huang Junji , Duan Lian , Choudhari Meelan M.
Published: February 2022

Direct numerical simulations (DNS) are performed to investigate the spatial evolution of flat-plate zero-pressure-gradient turbulent boundary layers over long streamwise domains (

${>}300\delta _i$

, with

$\delta _i$

the inflow boundary-layer thickness) at three different Mach numbers,

$2.5$

,

$4.9$

and

$10.9$

, with the surface temperatures ranging from quasiadiabatic to highly cooled conditions. The settlement of turbulence statistics into a fully developed equilibrium state of the turbulent boundary layer has been carefully monitored, either based on the satisfaction of the von Kármán integral equation or by comparing runs with different inflow turbulence generation techniques. The generated DNS database is used to characterize the streamwise evolution of multiple important variables in the high-Mach-number, cold-wall regime, including the skin friction, the Reynolds analogy factor, the shape factor, the Reynolds stresses, and the fluctuating wall quantities. The data confirm the validity of many classic and newer compressibility transformations at moderately high Reynolds numbers (up to friction Reynolds number

$Re_\tau \approx 1200$

) and show that, with proper scaling, the sizes of the near-wall streaks and superstructures are insensitive to the Mach number and wall cooling conditions. The strong wall cooling in the hypersonic cold-wall case is found to cause a significant increase in the size of the near-wall turbulence eddies (relative to the boundary-layer thickness), which leads to a reduced-scale separation between the large and small turbulence scales, and in turn to a lack of an outer peak in the spanwise spectra of the streamwise velocity in the logarithmic region.
Enigmatic surface rolls of the Ellesmere Ice Shelf
Authors: Coffey Niall B. , MacAyeal Douglas R. , Copland Luke , Mueller Derek R. , Sergienko Olga V. , Banwell Alison F. , Lai Ching-Yao
Published: February 2022

The once-contiguous Ellesmere Ice Shelf, first reported in writing by European explorers in 1876, and now almost completely disintegrated, has rolling, wave-like surface topography, the origin of which we investigate using a viscous buckling instability analysis. We show that rolls can develop during a winter season (~ 100 d) if sea-ice pressure (depth-integrated horizontal stress applied to the seaward front of the Ellesmere Ice Shelf) is sufficiently large (1 MPa m) and ice thickness sufficiently low (1–10 m). Roll wavelength initially depends only on sea-ice pressure, but evolves over time depending on amplitude growth rate. This implies that a thinner ice shelf, with its faster amplitude growth rate, will have a shorter wavelength compared to a thicker ice shelf when sea-ice pressure is equal. A drawback of the viscous buckling mechanism is that roll amplitude decays once sea-ice pressure is removed. However, non-Newtonian ice rheology, where effective viscosity, and thus roll change rate, depends on total applied stress may constrain roll decay rate to be much slower than growth rate and allow roll persistence from year to year. Whether the viscous-buckling mechanism we explore here ultimately can be confirmed as the origin of the Ellesmere Ice Shelf rolls remains for future research.
Administering New Anti-Bullying Law: The Organizational Field and School Variation During Initial Implementation
Authors: Shepherd Hana , Fast Idit
Published: February 2022

A 2011 New Jersey anti-bullying law required school personnel to make nuanced determinations about student violations, take on multiple new roles, and assume a high administrative burden. We examine how the state’s middle schools responded to the law during a period when standards for implementation among schools were unclear. We observe substantial variation between schools in their implementation approach and we identify two sources of this variation. First, parents, school district administrators and lawyers, state Department of Education staff, and private companies disseminated multiple, sometimes competing interpretations of the law and of bullying, to which school personnel were differentially exposed. Second, school personnel crafted their own implementation approach out of the varied interpretations from these organization field actors. In periods when legal standards are relatively settled, field actors often encourage conformity among organizations; in this case, by contrast, they contributed to variation in implementation. We argue that examining the on-the-ground interpretation of organization field meanings during unsettled periods may be particularly useful for understanding the trajectory of laws, as early variation provides the context in which organizational practices can become legal requirements.
Organ meat consumption and risk of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease: the Tianjin Chronic Low-grade Systemic Inflammation and Health cohort study
Authors: Li Huiping , Zheng Xiaoxi , Sabina Rayamajhi , Amrish Thapa , Meng Ge , Zhang Qing , Liu Li , Wu Hongmei , Gu Yeqing , Zhang Shunming , Zhang Tingjing , Wang Xuena , Dong Jun , Cao Zhixia , Zhang Xu , Dong Xinrong , Sun Shaomei , Wang Xing , Zhou Ming , Jia Qiyu , Song Kun , Niu Kaijun
Published: February 2022

Prospective cohort studies linking organ meat consumption and non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) are limited, especially in Asian populations. This study aimed to prospectively investigate the association between organ meat consumption and risk of NAFLD in a general Chinese adult population. This prospective cohort study included a total of 15 568 adults who were free of liver disease, CVD and cancer at baseline. Dietary information was collected at baseline using a validated FFQ. NAFLD was diagnosed by abdominal ultrasound after excluding other causes related to chronic liver disease. Cox proportional regression models were used to assess the association between organ meat consumption and risk of NAFLD. During a median of 4·2 years of follow-up, we identified 3604 incident NAFLD cases. After adjusting for demographic characteristics, lifestyle factors, vegetable, fruit, soft drink, seafood and red meat consumption, the multivariable hazard ratios (95 % CI) for incident NAFLD across consumption of organ meat were 1·00 (reference) for almost never, 1·04 (0·94, 1·15) for tertile 1, 1·08 (0·99, 1·19) for tertile 2 and 1·11 (1·01, 1·22) for tertile 3, respectively (Pfor trend < 0·05). Such association did not differ substantially in the sensitivity analysis. Our study indicates that organ meat consumption was related to a modestly higher risk of NAFLD among Chinese adults. Further investigations are needed to confirm this finding.
The impact of coronavirus disease 2019 on the head and neck cancer pathway in the West of Scotland
Authors: Drake I , Rogers A , Stewart M , Montgomery J
Published: February 2022

Objective

The coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic has greatly disrupted head and neck cancer services in the West of Scotland. This study aimed to assess the impact of the first wave of the pandemic on cancer waiting times.

Methods

A retrospective review of multidisciplinary team records was undertaken between March and May in 2019 and the same months in 2020. Time-to-diagnosis and time-to-treatment for new cancers treated with curative intent were compared between the study periods, and subclassified by referral pathway.

Results

A total of 236 new cancer patients were included. During the pandemic, pathways benefitted from reduced diagnostic and treatment times resulting from the restructuring of service provisions. A 75 per cent reduction in secondary care referrals and a 33 per cent increase in urgent suspicion of cancer referrals were observed in 2020.

Conclusion

Head and neck cancer pathway times did not suffer because of the coronavirus pandemic. Innovations introduced to mitigate issues brought about by coronavirus benefitted patients, led to a more streamlined service, and improved diagnostic and treatment target compliance.
Overstability of plasma slow electron holes
Authors: Hutchinson I.H.
Published: February 2022

Sufficient conditions are found on the ion velocity distribution

$f_i$

and potential amplitude for stability of steady electron holes moving at slow speeds, coinciding with the bulk of

$f_i$

. Fully establishing stability requires calculation of the ion response to shift potential perturbations having an entire range of oscillatory frequencies, because under some conditions real frequencies intermediate between the ion and electron responses prove to be unstable even when the extremes are not. The mechanism of this overstability is explained and calculated in detail. Electron holes of peak potential

$\psi$

less than approximately 0.01 times the background temperature (

$\psi \lesssim 0.01T_0/e$

) avoid the oscillatory instability entirely. For them, the necessary condition that there be a local minimum in

$f_i$

in which the hole resides is also sufficient, unless the magnetic field

$B$

is low enough to permit the transverse instability having finite wavenumber

$k$

perpendicular to

$B$

.
Coverage control of mobile agents using multi-step broadcast control
Authors: Darmaraju Shalini , Kamal Md Abdus Samad , Shanmugavel Madhavan , Tan Chee Pin
Published: February 2022

This paper proposes a novel multi-step broadcast control (MBC) scheme to deploy a group of autonomous mobile agents for accomplishing coverage tasks in a bounded region. Traditional broadcast control (BC) schemes use a one-to-all communication framework to transmit a uniform signal to all agents, making it cost-effective compared with any all-to-all communication-based scheme for a multi-agent system. However, as BC schemes are based on a single-step view of the environment for decision-making, the environment’s varying distribution density is not known immediately to the agents, resulting in suboptimal performance. To overcome this drawback, this paper proposes an MBC scheme, where agents use a predictive multi-step view and are able to detect the varying densities in the environment ahead of time. The local controller output is estimated using a weighted averaging technique which assigns a higher weight to immediate steps; this feature compensates for any decrease in prediction accuracy as the number of steps increases. We demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed MBC scheme using a coverage task over a region with uneven population density. Compared to existing BC schemes, the proposed MBC scheme shows superior convergence characteristics in task accomplishment and deployment efficiency.
Early-career scholars and scholarship: A social justice perspective
Authors: Habibie Pejman
Published: February 2022

This paper focuses on the concept of social (in)justice to examine and discuss some of the areas in the production and dissemination of knowledge in which the issue of social justice is significant and should be applied and considered. More specifically, it explores and advocates for some of the ways in which participation in, and contribution to, global scholarship can become a more socially just practice for academics, especially novice scholars and early-career researchers in the field of Applied Linguistics. It also highlights the role and agentive engagement of both established and junior members of academic communities as an important factor in demonopolizing and democratizing academic discourses and practices and making the mobilization of scholarship more diverse, inclusive, multivocal, and transformative.
The spectrum of a localic semiring
Authors: MANUELL GRAHAM
Published: February 2022

A number of spectrum constructions have been devised to extract topological spaces from algebraic data. Prominent examples include the Zariski spectrum of a commutative ring, the Stone spectrum of a bounded distributive lattice, the Gelfand spectrum of a commutative unital C*-algebra and the Hofmann–Lawson spectrum of a continuous frame.

Inspired by the examples above, we define a spectrum for localic semirings. We use arguments in the symmetric monoidal category of suplattices to prove that, under conditions satisfied by the aforementioned examples, the spectrum can be constructed as the frame of overt weakly closed radical ideals and that it reduces to the usual constructions in those cases. Our proofs are constructive.

Our approach actually gives ‘quantalic’ spectrum from which the more familiar localic spectrum can then be derived. For a discrete ring this yields the quantale of ideals and in general should contain additional ‘differential’ information about the semiring.
Uniform bounds for norms of theta series and arithmetic applications
Authors: WAIBEL FABIAN
Published: February 2022

We prove uniform bounds for the Petersson norm of the cuspidal part of the theta series. This gives an improved asymptotic formula for the number of representations by a quadratic form. As an application, we show that every integer$n \neq 0,4,7 \,(\textrm{mod}\ 8)$is represented as$n= x_1^2 + x_2^2 + x_3^3$for integers$x_1,x_2,x_3$such that the product$x_1x_2x_3$has at most 72 prime divisors.
Transnational networked authority
Authors: Perez Oren
Published: February 2022

The structure of the global governance system has undergone significant changes in the past few years. From a system governed primarily by global public law institutions established through multilateral treaties, it has metamorphosed into a hybrid field in which a plethora of public, private, and semi-public institutions interact in various ways. The shift to a hybrid global governance architecture presents a complex challenge for legal and political theory, with immense policy implications. In the present article, I respond to this challenge by developing a new model of transnational legal authority, which conceptualizes it as an emergent, network-based phenomenon. According to this model, the emergence of transnational networked authority is dependent on the existence of a multi-layered structure of strongly connected transnational regimes. Key factors in the emergence of networked authority are the normative and compliance synergies that arise through the densification of links across the network. I examine in this context the linkage between the sociological and the jurisprudential aspects of the authority of private transnational regulatory regimes, and develop the idea of ‘network grounding’, which emphasizes the relational structure of private transnational legality. I illustrate the thesis by reviewing findings from a network analysis of transnational corporate social responsibility networks.
Epidemiological characteristics in serotype 24 paediatric invasive pneumococcal disease according to an 11-year population-based study in Japan
Authors: Takeshita Kenichi , Takeuchi Noriko , Ohkusu Misako , Hishiki Haruka , Shiko Yuki , Kawasaki Yohei , Chang Bin , Ishiwada Naruhiko
Published: February 2022

After the introduction of the 13-valent pneumococcal conjugate vaccine (PCV13), serotype replacement has occurred in Japan, and serotype 24 has become the most common serotype in paediatric invasive pneumococcal disease (IPD). To understand the characteristics of serotype 24-IPD in Japanese children in the post-PCV13 era, we conducted a retrospective study in children aged ≤15 years from 2010 to 2020 using a database of paediatric IPD surveillance in Chiba prefecture, Japan. We identified a total of 357 IPD cases and collected clinical information on 225 cases (24: 32 cases, non-24: 193 cases). Compared with the non-serotype 24-IPD, serotype 24-IPD was independently related to be <2 years of age [odds ratio (OR) 3.91, 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.47–10.44; P = 0.0064] and bacteremia (OR 2.28, 95% CI 1.01–5.13; P = 0.0475), as a result of the multivariate regression analysis. We also conducted a bacterial analysis, and the isolates of serotype 24-IPD had tendencies of PCG-susceptible (24: 100.0%, non-24: 61.3%; P < 0.0001) and macrolide-resistance (24: 100.0%, non-24: 87.3%; P = 0.0490). Their multilocus sequence typing was mostly ST2572 and the variants, which were unique to Japan. This tendency might have been a result of the progress made in the Japanese PCV13 immunisation programme.
Population size, abundance, habitat relationships and the result of a translocation programme in the Gran Canaria Blue ChaffinchFringilla polatzeki
Authors: CARRASCAL LUIS M. , DELGADO ALEJANDRO , SUÁREZ VÍCTOR , MORENO ÁNGEL C.
Published: February 2022

The Gran Canaria Blue ChaffinchFringilla polatzekiis a threatened, endemic, forest‐dwelling bird species of the Canary Islands, whose core population at the end of the 20th century was restricted to the pine forests of Inagua Nature Reserve (38 km2). A translocation programme released birds from a breeding centre into the nearby (<3 km) pine forests of La Cumbre in the years following 2010. From 2015 to 2019 the La Cumbre population was reinforced by translocation of wild juveniles from the source population of Inagua. We estimate the population size, the spatial variation of abundance, and recent temporal changes in density of the species in Inagua and La Cumbre by means of line transects, distance sampling, and habitat suitability modelling using random forests. The average density of the Blue Chaffinch in Inagua Nature Reserve was 10.2 birds/km2in spring 2019, with a population estimated at 362 birds (95% CI: 257–489). The most important variables affecting the distribution of the Blue Chaffinch in Inagua were the amount of precipitation during the summer (July–September), the solar radiation in June, and the northern position in the reserve, highlighting the importance of abiotic factors related to thermal and hydric stress during the breeding season. The density was considerably lower in the translocated population inhabiting 21 km2of pine forests in La Cumbre (3.3 birds/km2), with an estimate of 68 Blue Chaffinches (35–141) breeding freely in the wild. The translocation programme successfully contributed to the establishment of a second viable nucleus, accounting for 16% of the total population within a time span of 10 years. This result reinforces the role of translocations in preventing extinctions of endangered species with very low population sizes restricted to only one isolated area.
Connecting Architectures across the Landscape: A Visibility and Network Analysis in the Island of Mallorca during the Late Bronze Age and Early Iron Age
Authors: Galmés-Alba Alejandra , Calvo-Trias Manuel
Published: February 2022

Architecture has been one of the key features in studying the first millennium bc in the Balearic Islands. The primary goal of this research is to analyse how monumental communal architecture enabled the construction of enduring social spaces and how the role of these spaces within the community can be understood through the relations that conform across the landscape. To do so we will focus on the Late Bronze Age (1100–850 bc) and the Talayotic period (c. 850–650 bc), the first moment when cyclopean dry-stone architecture is used in communal spaces, such as talayots or stepped turriforms, making them stand out across the landscape. To understand how these architectures are connected, we analysed the visual connections between them through intervisibility and network analysis, as well as through Individual Distance Viewsheds. Through the analysis of visual connections, we seek to understand how the architecture created a network across the entire landscape, and how the characteristics and properties of this network are key in understanding the relationship between Talayotic communities and their landscape. Our aim is to explore how architecture shaped and gave meaning to the landscape and how we cannot understand the buildings by themselves, but as part of a network.
Effect of melatonin on the clinical outcome of patients with repeated cycles after failed cycles of in vitro fertilization and intracytoplasmic sperm injection
Authors: Zhu Qi , Wang Kaijuan , Zhang Chao , Chen Beili , Zou Huijuan , Zou Weiwei , Xue Rufeng , Ji Dongmei , Yu Zhaojuan , Rao Bihua , Huo Ran , Cao Yunxia , Ding Ding , Zhang Zhiguo
Published: February 2022

To explore whether embryo culture with melatonin (MT) can improve the embryonic development and clinical outcome of patients with repeated cycles after in vitro fertilization/intracytoplasmic sperm injection (IVF/ICSI) failure, immature oocytes from controlled ovarian superovulation cycles were collected for in vitro maturation (IVM) and ICSI. The obtained embryos were cultured in 0, 10–11, 10–9, 10–7 and 10–5 M MT medium respectively, and 10–9 M was screened out as the optimal concentration. Subsequently, 140 patients who underwent failed IVF/ICSI cycles received 140 cycles of embryo culture in vitro with a medium containing 10–9 M MT, these 140 MT culture cycles were designated as the experimental group (10–9 M group), and the control group was the previous failed cycles of patients (0 M group). The results showed that the fertilization, cleavage, high-quality embryo, blastocyst, and high-quality blastocyst rates of the 10–9 M group were significantly higher than those of the 0 M group (P < 0.01; P < 0.01; P < 0.0001; P < 0.0001; P < 0.0001). To date, in total, 50 vitrified-warmed cycle transfers have been performed in the 10–9 M group and the implantation rate, biochemical pregnancy rate and clinical pregnancy rate were significantly higher than those in the 0 M group (all P < 0.0001). Two healthy infants were delivered successfully and the other 18 women who achieved clinical pregnancy also had good examination indexes. Therefore the application of 10–9 M MT to embryo cultures in vitro improved embryonic development in patients with repeated cycles after failed IVF/ICSI cycles and had good clinical outcomes.

Trial registration: ChiCTR2100045552.