bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
THREE DAYS MONITORING OF ACTIVITIES OF DAILY LIVING AMONG YOUNG HEALTHY ADULTS AND PARKINSON’S DISEASE PATIENTS
Authors:   School of Biological and Health Systems Engineering, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, Hyun Moon Seong , Soangra Rahul ,   Crean College of Health and Behavioral Sciences, Chapman University, Orange, CA, Frames Christopher F. , Lockhart Thurmon E. ,   School of Biological and Health Systems Engineering, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ
Published: September 2021

Parkinson’s Disease (PD) is a neurodegenerative disorder affecting the substantia nigra, which leads to more than half of PD patients are considered to be at high risk of falling. Recently, Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU) sensors have shown great promise in the classification of activities of daily living (ADL) such as walking, standing, sitting, and laying down, considered to be normal movement in daily life. Measuring physical activity level from longitudinal ADL monitoring among PD patients could provide insights into their fall mechanisms. In this study, six PD patients (mean age=74.3±6.5 years) and six young healthy subjects (mean age=19.7±2.7 years) were recruited. All the subjects were asked to wear the single accelerometer, DynaPort MM+ (Motion Monitor+, McRoberts BV, The Hague, Netherlands), with a sampling frequency of 100 Hz located at the L5-S1 spinal area for 3 days. Subjects maintained a log of activities they performed and only removed the sensor while showering or performing other aquatic activities. The resultant acceleration was filtered using high and low pass Butterworth filters to determine dynamic and stationary activities. As a result, it was found that healthy young subjects performed significantly more dynamic activities (13.2%) when compared to PD subjects (7%), in contrast, PD subjects (92.9%) had significantly more stationary activities than young healthy subjects (86.8%).
HYPOTHETICAL FEASIBILITY OF USING STRESS BIOMETRICS IN STUDENTS WITH CORTICAL VISUAL IMPAIRMENT
Authors:   iBrain - International Institute for the Brain, New York, NY, Pedro Victor M. , Mathew Juby ,   iBrain - International Institute for the Brain, New York, NY, Oggero Elena ,   Electrical and Computer Engineering Department, University of Wyoming, Laramie, WY, USA,   Vestibular Technologies, LLC, Cheyenne, WY, USA
Published: September 2021

Cortical Visual Impairment (CVI) is resultant from neurological injury and damage to visual pathways or vision centers in the brain. CVI is sometimes undiagnosed in individuals with brain injuries due to the complexity of the human visual system. The International Institute for the Brain (iBrain) is a specialized school for students ages 5 to 21 who have a brain disorder or an acquired brain injury. They often present with noticeable CVI. While there are various metrics and interventions for the pediatric population, the adequacy has been lacking in terms of the vulnerability of this non-verbal population. Assessing the safety and effectiveness of rehabilitative interventions for this fragile student population can be challenging as most traditional metrics cannot be used. In this methodological review paper, available metrics were investigated and their applicability for this specific population is discussed with the end goal of identifying the best metrics that could be used to determine treatment effectiveness and providing a way for monitoring adverse effects. Combining pulse oximetry, cortisol response sensor, and galvanic skin response as biometrics theoretically offers a comprehensive assessment of autonomic activity and responses and establishes objective measures to identify treatment outcomes and adverse reactions. However, future experimental studies are needed to verify if the proposed protocol is feasible and if it is well tolerated by the iBrain students before it can be implemented to monitor adverse reaction to intervention and as a potential treatment outcome measure for children affected by CVI.
SHAPE CHARACTERIZATION OF MEDIASTINUM IN TUBERCULOSIS CHEST RADIOGRAPHS USING LEVEL SET SEGMENTATION
Authors:   Department of Applied Mechanics Indian Institute of Technology Madras, Chennai, India, Tulo Sukanta Kumar , Govindarajan Satyavratan ,   Department of Applied Mechanics Indian Institute of Technology Madras, Chennai, India, Ramu Palaniappan ,   Department of Applied Mechanics Indian Institute of Technology Madras, Chennai, India, Swaminathan Ramakrishnan ,   Department of Engineering Design  Indian Institute of Technology Madras, Chennai
Published: September 2021

Mediastinum is considered as one of the substantial anatomical regions for the gross diagnosis of several chest related pathologies. The geometric variations of the mediastinum in Chest Radiographs (CXRs) could be utilised as potential image markers in the early detection of Tuberculosis (TB). This study attempts to segment mediastinum in CXRs using level sets for the shape characterization of TB conditions. The CXR images for this study are considered from a public database. An edge-based distance regularized level set evolution is employed to segment the lungs followed by a region-based Chan-Vese model that extracts mediastinum region. Features such as mediastinum area and lungs area are extracted from the segmented images. Further, mediastinum to lungs area ratio is calculated. Statistical analysis is performed on the features to differentiate normal and TB images. Results show that the proposed segmentation approach is able to segment the lungs and extract the mediastinum in CXRs. It is found that features namely mediastinum area and mediastinum to lungs area ratio are statistically significant in the differentiation of TB. Larger mediastinum area is observed in TB images as compared to normal. The performance of lung field segmentation is also observed to be in line with the literature. The mediastinum segmentation approach in CXRs obtains to be a novel method as compared to the existing methods. As the proposed approach based on mediastinum image analysis provides better shape characterization, the study could be clinically useful in the differentiation of TB conditions.
RADIOMICS BASED BREAST MALIGNANCY INDEX TO DIFFERENTIATE PATHOLOGICAL CHANGES DUE TO NEOADJUVANT CHEMOTHERAPY
Authors:   Vellore Institute of Technology, Vellore-632014, Tamil Nadu, India, Moyya Priscilla Dinkar , Asaithambi Mythili ,   Vellore Institute of Technology, Vellore-632014, Tamil Nadu, India, Ramaniharan Anandh Kilpattu ,   University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, Al, USA
Published: September 2021

The leading cause of deaths among women in the world is Breast Cancer. Neoadjuvant chemotherapy (NAC) offers effective treatment results, thus reducing tumor aggression and allowing treatment monitoring. The Dynamic Contrast Enhanced (DCE) MRI plays a vital role in assessing the treatment response due to NAC. However, quantifying the treatment response in low-grade tumours is visually challenging. Radiomics is an evolving field of medical imaging that reflects the histopathological variations in breast tissues. Integrating radiomics with breast DCE-MRI provides clinically useful measures in evaluating the NAC response. In this work, we have formulated an index called Radiomics based Breast Malignancy Index (RBMI) using texture and Haar wavelets to differentiate the radiological differences of breast tissue due to NAC. The statistically significant radiomic features extracted from 20 DCE-MR images obtained using TCIA database were used in the calculation of RBMI. Results show that, RBMI could statistically differentiate (p=0.007) the treatment response between visit-1 & 2 due to NAC with mean and standard deviation values of 334706.5949 ± 93952.5123 and 296354.9720 ± 77120.6718 respectively. Hence, RBMI seems to be a clinically adjunct measure in evaluating the treatment response of breast cancer due to NAC.
ROTATIONAL MOMENT SHAPE FEATURE EXTRACTION AND DECISION TREE BASED DISCRIMINATION OF MILD COGNITIVE IMPAIRMENT CONDITIONS USING MR IMAGE PROCESSING
Authors:   Department of Applied Mechanics, Indian Institute of Technology Madras, Chennai, India, Dadsena Ravi , Sadukhan Deboleena , Swaminathan Ramakrishnan
Published: September 2021

Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI) is the preclinical, asymptomatic stage for Alzheimer’s condition, which affects a large amount of the aging population around the world. Detection of MCI condition can ensure timely intervention needed for handling the disease severity. Morphological alterations of the Lateral Ventricle (LV) are considered a significant biomarker for diagnosing MCI conditions. This work aims at analyzing the shape alterations of LV from brain Magnetic Resonance (MR) images using Rotational moment shape features and differentiating MCI conditions using Decision Tree (DT) based classification. Trans-axial brain MR images are obtained from a publicly available OASIS database. Segmentation of LV is performed using the Reaction Diffusion level set, and the results are validated against Ground Truth. Rotational moment shape features are extracted from the segmented LV images. DT is implemented for the differentiation of control and MCI subjects. Results show that Rotational moment shape features are able to capture the alterations of LV in control and MCI subjects (p<0.05). The classification model achieves a high detection accuracy of 96.73% and an F-measure of 96.82%. Hence, the proposed method can be used as an automated diagnostic tool to predict and monitor the cognitive decline in MCI subjects and can aid in disease management.
BREAST CANCER SEGMENTATION OF MAMMOGRAPHICS IMAGES USING GENERATIVE
Authors:   M.S. Ramaiah University of Applied Sciences, Bengaluru, Karnataka, India, N Swathi , Bobby T. Christy ,   M.S. Ramaiah University of Applied Sciences, Bengaluru, Karnataka, India
Published: September 2021

Segmentation of breast cancer tumor plays an important role in identifying the location of the tumor, to know the shape of tumor and hence the stage of breast cancer. This paper deals with the segmentation of tumor from whole mammographic mass images using Generative Adversarial Network (GAN). A mini dataset was considered with mammograms and their corresponding ground truth images. Pre-processing like image format conversion, enhancement, pectoral muscle removal and resizing was performed on raw mammogram images. GANs have two neural nets called generative and discriminative networks that compete against each other to obtain the segmentation output. PIX2PIX is a conditional GAN variant which has U-Net as the Generator network and a simple deep neural net as the discriminator. The input to the network was pair of pre-processed mass image and the associated ground truth. A binary image with highlighted tumor was obtained as output. The performance of GAN was evaluated by plotting Generator and discriminator loss. The segmented output was compared with corresponding ground truth. Metrics like Jaccard index, Jaccard distance and Dice-coefficient were calculated. A Dice-coefficient and Jaccard index of 90% and 88.38% was achieved. In future, higher accuracy could be achieved by involving larger dataset to make the system robust.
RADIOMICS BASED SINGLE AND MULTI-CLASS GLIOMA CLASSIFICATION USING SUPPORT VECTOR MACHINE VARIANTS
Authors:   Ramaiah University of Applied Sciences, Bangalore, Karnataka, India, Seema P.D. , Christy T. Bobby ,   Ramaiah University of Applied Sciences, Bangalore, Karnataka, India, Anandh K.R. ,   University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, Alabama, United States
Published: September 2021

The common type of primary brain tumor is glioma. The mortality rate of glioma patients is high due to delayed diagnosis, incorrect grading and treatment planning. Traditionally, gliomas were classified into Low Grade (grade-I and grade-II) and High Grade (grade-III and grade-IV). However, World Health Organization has insisted to classify the grades into grade-I(G-I), grade II(G-II), grade III(G-III) and grade IV(G-IV) individually to aid the physicians in clinical decision-making. Although there are limited number of studies reported to differentiate individual grades, the classification accuracy was low. Consequently, in this work single-class (G-II vs. G-III, G-II vs. G-IV and G-III vs. G-IV) and multi-class (G-II vs. G-III+IV, G-III vs. G-II+IV and G-IV vs. G-II+III) analysis was performed using specific region of tumor and whole brain as Regions of Interest(ROI) by extracting radiomic features. The images for this study (N=75) were obtained from The Cancer Imaging Archive. Further, the statistically significant features were used in the classification of individual grades by implementing variants of Support Vector Machine (SVM) algorithm: SVM, Linear-SVM and Least-Squared SVM. Among these, Linear-SVM resulted in the highest classification accuracy (>80%) with average sensitivity, specificity and AUC values of >70%. The comparative analysis of whole brain versus tumor ROI showed that the latter yielded better classification accuracy.
CHARACTERIZING DRIVER TAKE-OVER ACCURACY: EFFECT OF AGE, SEX, STARTLE, AND SECONDARY TASK
Authors:   Center for Injury Research and Prevention, Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, Philadelphia, PA,USA, Graci Valentina , Austin Meta ,   Center for Injury Research and Prevention, Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, Philadelphia, PA,USA,   Brown University School of Engineering, Providence, RI,USA, Griffith Madeline ,   Center for Injury Research and Prevention, Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, Philadelphia, PA,USA, Akkem Rahul ,   Center for Injury Research and Prevention, Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, Philadelphia, PA,USA, Msheshwari Jalaj ,   Center for Injury Research and Prevention, Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, Philadelphia, PA,USA, Seacrist Thomas ,   Center for Injury Research and Prevention, Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, Philadelphia, PA,USA, Arbogast Kristy B. ,   Center for Injury Research and Prevention, Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, Philadelphia, PA,USA
Published: September 2021

The Acoustic Startling Pre-stimulus (ASPS, i.e. a loud sound preceding a physical perturbation was previously found to accelerate take-over actions in adults but not teens in autonomous vehicle scenarios. It is not clear if the ASPS also influences the accuracy of the take-over response across ages and sexes. Therefore the aims of this study are: to characterize take-over accuracy across age/experience and sex and to examine the effect of the ASPS and a secondary task on steering wheel alignment in autonomous vehicle take-over scenarios. Fourteen adult (7 males and 13 teenage (6 males drivers volunteered for this study. Participants were instructed to align a marker on the steering wheel with a marker on a lateral post as fast as they could, when a sled perturbation started. Two of the conditions included the ASPS. Two of the conditions involved mobile texting while the sled started moving. The angle between the steering wheel and the lateral post was used to quantify overshooting, undershooting, or correct alignment during steering. Results showed that adult female subjects reached correct alignment slightly more frequently than any other group, while male adult drivers decreased their alignment error after the first trial. Both female and male adult drivers had a reduced alignment angle when the first trial had an ASPS compared to when the first trial had no ASPS while teen drivers performed similarly with ASPS or without. This study showed that take-over accuracy and steering control are influenced by sex, age/experience, and a startle-based warning.
DEVELOPMENT OF A RF BIOSENSOR DESIGN TO DETECT CHANGES IN SCATTERING PARAMETERS OF AQUEOUS MATERIALS DURING RADIO FREQUENCY WAVE EXPOSURE
Authors:   North Dakota State University, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering 1411 Centennial Blvd, Fargo, ND 58105, Pearson Mary , Ewert Daniel , Striker Ryan , Braaten Benjamin
Published: September 2021

The advancing field of biosensor design continues pushing for smaller, inexpensive, yet accurate sensor designs. A subset of biosensors operating in the radio frequency (RF) range of electromagnetic (EM) waves, called RF biosensors, offer appeal as a non-destructive, non-invasive form of sensing. A novel RF biosensor is proposed which detects changes in scattering parameter measurements of a microliter, aqueous material under test (MUT) held within a well adjacent to a microstrip transmission line. This sensing design measures scattering parameter data and changes in these measurements offer insight into the effects of RF wave exposure on dielectric materials within the well. The following paper describes design considerations and the sensing technique of the proposed RF biosensor. Simulations were run in incremental steps to first, establish the simulation design of a 50-ohm microstrip transmission line using two software packages ADS and Ansys HFSS. Next, experimental measurements were collected by milling the RF biosensor, first using air and then distilled water as the MUT, and finally comparing to simulations to establish validity of the novel sensing device. Next, experimental S-parameter measurements were obtained and compared between the two test cases to determine if a difference could be detected. Both simulated and experimentally obtained measurements suggest the designed RF biosensor can detect changes in the MUT loaded inside its etched well and therefore can be used as a sensing device.
DIFFERENTIATION OF DICHOTOMOUS EMOTIONAL STATES IN ELECTRODERMAL ACTIVITY SIGNALS USING HIGHER-ORDER CROSSING FEATURES AND PARAMETRIC CLASSIFIERS
Authors:   iomedical Engineering Group, Department of Applied Mechanics, Indian Institute of Technology Madras, Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India, Veeranki Yedukondala Rao , Ganapathy Nagarajan ,   iomedical Engineering Group, Department of Applied Mechanics, Indian Institute of Technology Madras, Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India,   PLRI for Medical Informatics of TU Braunschweig and Hannover Medical School, Germany, Swaminathan Ramakrishnan
Published: September 2021

Prediction and recognition of happy and sad emotional states play important roles in many aspects of human life. In this work, an attempt has been made to classify them using Electrodermal Activity (EDA). For this, EDA signals are obtained from a public database and decomposed into tonic and phasic components. Features, namely Hjorth and higher-order crossing, are extracted from the phasic component of the signal. Further, these extracted features are fed to four parametric classifiers, namely, linear discriminant analysis, logistic regression, multilayer perceptron, and naive bayes for the classification. The results show that the proposed approach can classify the dichotomous happy and sad emotional states. The multilayer perceptron classifier is accurate (85.7%) in classifying happy and sad emotional states. The proposed method is robust in handling the dynamic variation of EDA signals for happy and sad emotional states. Thus, it appears that the proposed method could be able to understand the neurological, psychiatrical, and biobehavioural mechanisms of happy and sad emotional states.
FRACTAL ANGLE BASED DIFFERENTIATION OF TERM PREGNANCIES USING UTERINE ELECTROMYOGRAPHIC SIGNALS
Authors:   Non-Invasive Imaging and Diagnostics Laboratory, Biomedical Engineering Group, Department of Applied Mechanics, Indian Institute of Technology Madras, India,, Vardhini P. , Ramakrishnan S.
Published: September 2021

Uterine Electromyography (uEMG) is a non-invasive technique that provides quantitative measure of uterine activity from the abdominal surface. In this work, an attempt has been made to investigate Term (gestational age > 37 weeks) uEMG signals using Adaptive Fractal Analysis (AFA). For this, the signals obtained in second and third trimesters are considered and subjected to AFA. The fluctuation function is computed and the corresponding linear scaling regions are identified based on Chi-square statistic, standard error of slope, and coefficient of determination. Angle-based features from multiple scaling regions namely, inter-fractal angle and, short- and long-term fractal angles are extracted and are used for further analysis. The obtained results demonstrates that AFA approach can characterize the Term signals during varied gestational ages. All features show significant differences (p < 0.05) in both groups. Feature values suggest that the third trimester signals possess more correlated and smoother fluctuations when compared to second trimester signals. This is attributed to the increased coordination of uterine contractions as delivery approaches. Hence, it appears that the proposed adaptive angle-based fractal features could be potential biomarkers in analyzing the muscle contractions associated with Term pregnancies.
TN HYDROGELS AS A POTENTIAL ANTI-INFLAMMATORY DRUG DELIVERY SYSTEM TARGETED TO OSTEOARTHRITIC KNEES
Authors:   Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology, Terre Haute, IN, USA, Bussett Katlynn , Goebel Katherine ,   Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology, Terre Haute, IN, USA, Lee Victoria ,   Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology, Terre Haute, IN, USA, Alumbaugh Lindsey ,   Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology, Terre Haute, IN, USA, Calhoun Mark ,   Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology, Terre Haute, IN, USA, Nguyen B. Audrey ,   University of Akron, Akron, OH, USA, Dosmar Emily ,   Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology, Terre Haute, IN, USA
Published: September 2021

Arthritis affects 26.3% of adults and approximately 50,000 children in the United States [1]. Hydrogel drug-delivery systems have been considered as a viable option for drug delivery to arthritic articular cartilage in the knee. To determine physiologically relevant loading, a Qualisys motion capture system was used to analyze the gait of college-aged females as they took several steps on a flat surface, then stepped onto a force plate. The motion capture and force plate data was used to determine maximum force exerted on the knee during normal gait. Three different alginate-based hydrogels, where the superior one had a triple interpenetrating graphene oxide network (TN hydrogels), were investigated for use as an antiinflammatory drug delivery system in a human knee joint. Physiologically relevant cyclic loading was performed to ensure that the TN hydrogel could withstand the force exerted in the knee. The TN hydrogel experienced a change in energy of 50% after cyclic loading (10.6 ± 15.0 Pa) and survived high stresses of 4 kPa, which is 80 magnitudes larger than observable gait forces as measured in this study. From a mechanical perspective, TN hydrogel appears to be mechanically viable for arthritis drug delivery. In addition, based on calculations and Flory-Rehner equations, the pore size of the TN hydrogel is adequate for encapsulating most NSAIDs, which have a molecule size ≤ 5μm.
PROBING CLINICAL RELEVANCE: ESTABLISHING THE EFFICACY OF C. NOVYI AGAINST A PANEL OF 2D CULTURED PANCREATIC CANCER CELLS
Authors:   Cell and Molecular Biology Program, North Dakota State University, Fargo, ND, USA, Dailey K.M. , Jacobson R.I. ,   Dept. of Biological Sciences,  North Dakota State University, Fargo, ND, USA, Kim J. ,   Cell and Molecular Biology Program, North Dakota State University, Fargo, ND, USA,   Dept. of Biological Sciences,  North Dakota State University, Fargo, ND, USA, Mallik S. ,   Cell and Molecular Biology Program, North Dakota State University, Fargo, ND, USA, Brooks A.E. ,   Cell and Molecular Biology Program, North Dakota State University, Fargo, ND, USA,   Office of Research and Scholarly Activity, Rocky Vista University, Ivins, UT
Published: September 2021

Pancreatic cancer presents a unique challenge for the development of effective oncotherapies. The tumor microenvironment (TME) of this type of tumor typically contains a dense desmoplastic barrier composed of aberrant extracellular matrix proteins, as well as an acidic, hypoxic and necrotic core. Additionally, the immune system surrounding this type of tumor has often been suppressed by the TME. Hence, choosing the correct model of the tumor microenvironment within which to test a potential anti-cancer therapy is a critical experimental design decision. While the typical solid tumor contains a complex microenvironment including both phenotypic and genotypic heterogeneity, the methods used to model this disease state often do not reflect this complexity. This simplistic approach may have contributed to stagnant five-year survival rates experienced over the past four decades. Oncolytic bacteria, a class of bacteria with the innate ability to seek and destroy solid tumors has been revived from historical anecdotes in an attempt to overcome these challenges. Regardless of the promise of oncolytic bacteria, accurate assessment of their potential requires choosing the proper tumor model. This study explores the impact of cancer cell lines co-cultured with Wild-Type C. novyi to establish the efficacy of this oncolytic bacteria in a monolayer culture.
CORTICAL INTEGRATIVE THERAPY EFFECTIVENESS IN THE TREATMENT OF POST-CONCUSSION SYNDROME AND MILD TRAUMATIC BRAIN INJURY
Authors:   iBrain - International Institute for the Brain, New York, NY, Pedro Victor M. ,   Director of Rhode Island Integrated Medicine, Cranston, RI, Lim Nicole C. ,   iBrain - International Institute for the Brain, New York, NY, Oggero Elena ,   Electrical and Computer Engineering Department, University of Wyoming, Laramie, WY, USA,   Vestibular Technologies, LLC, Cheyenne, WY, USA
Published: September 2021

Post-Concussion Syndrome (PCS) is a relatively prevalent condition that emerges after sustaining a head injury. Individuals with PCS experience prolonged impairments and distress associated with the injury which can impact the individuals’ quality of life experiences. In this retrospective chart review of refractory adult patients diagnosed with PCS and mild Traumatic Brain Injury (mTBI), the effectiveness of Cortical Integrative Therapy (PedroCIT®) was investigated by comparing measures of postural stability, brain sequencing and timing, and self-reports of physical and psychosocial symptoms of PCS obtained before and after PedroCIT®. Multivariate and Repeated Measures General Linear Models showed improvements across the measures from before to after treatment in all subjects, highlighting the effectiveness of PedroCIT®. To further underscore the capacity of PedroCIT® to elicit improvements in patients who have been resistant to treatment prior to PedroCIT®, the duration of time that the subjects underwent PedroCIT® was compared to the duration of time since the injury to the subjects’ first PedroCIT® intervention session. The findings of this study showed significant improvements from pre- to post-treatment in postural stability, brain sequencing and timing, and self-reported symptoms for patients affected by PCS and mTBI, and treatment outcomes were largely not contingent upon the severity of the condition at the beginning of treatment. Altogether, this retrospective study suggests that refractory individuals affected by PCS and mTBI can benefit from undergoing PedroCIT® and their treatment outcomes may not be related to the degree of impairment presented at the beginning of treatment.
CORTICAL INTEGRATIVE THERAPY EFFECTIVENESS IN THE TREATMENT OF VERTIGO/BALANCE ISSUES
Authors:   iBrain - International Institute for the Brain, New York, NY, Pedro Victor M. , Oggero Elena ,   Electrical and Computer Engineering Department, University of Wyoming, Laramie, WY,   Vestibular Technologies, LLC, Cheyenne, WY
Published: September 2021

Primary care physicians see a very high incidence of vertigo, dizziness, and balance issues resultant from a broad spectrum of etiologies from vestibular dysfunction, brain injury, neck trauma, metabolic diseases to autonomic dysfunction and psychological conditions. Because dizziness is by definition a subjective condition, self-report questionnaires such as the Dizziness Handicap Index (DHI) are commonly utilized in assessing the impact of vestibular dysfunction in patients. However, objective metrics like Computerized Dynamic Posturography (CDP) can be useful tools for the assessment of dizziness and the validation of diagnoses and treatment effectiveness. In this retrospective study of 50 patients charts, the effectiveness of Cortical Integrative Therapy (PedroCIT®) was evaluated using the DHI and CDP. In particular, the therapy outcome was investigated to determine if it was affected by a vertigo diagnosis, a vertigo comorbidity or by the simple presence of vertigo symptoms. The result of this investigation showed that PedroCIT® is indeed an effective treatment method for vertigo and dizziness: subjects demonstrated and reported improvement in their clinical outcomes, and both CDP and DHI metric in general reflected the significant improvement the subject experienced. For those subjects that still were in the worse categories according to the CDP and DHI metrics, the effect of treatment were potentially influenced by uncontrolled variables such as a change in medications, mental status, or concomitant worsening in the subject's comorbidities, amongst other unknown variables contributing to individual unsatisfying outcomes. Further studies involving larger number of subjects are needed to address these issues.
PROPORTION AND CHARACTERISTICS OF NEW PATIENTS WITH CENTRAL SENSITIZATION PRESENTING TO A CHIROPRACTIC PRACTICE - A CROSS-SECTIONAL OBSERVATIONAL STUDY
Authors:   Small Street Clinic, Hampton, Melbourne, Australia, Noone Paul , Pagnacco Guido ,   Electrical and Computer Engineering Department, University of Wyoming, Laramie, WY, USA,   Vestibular Technologies, LLC, Cheyenne, WY, USA, Oggero Elena ,   Electrical and Computer Engineering Department, University of Wyoming, Laramie, WY, USA,   Vestibular Technologies, LLC, Cheyenne, WY, USA
Published: September 2021

Central Sensitization (CS) is postulated as a central explanation of chronic pain. Clinical researchers recommend that therapists screen for CS to avoid diagnostic confusion and improve the allocation of appropriate clinical resources in primary care settings when managing chronic pain patients. However, the percentage of patients presenting with CS to a chiropractic practice has not been found in the literature. This study had two objectives: to use the Central Sensitization Inventory (CSI) to screen for and identify the proportion and characteristics of consecutive new patients with chronic pain conditions and medically unexplained symptoms who are experiencing CS; and to determine if there were significant clinical relationships between patient characteristics (age, sex, BMI, complaint type and duration, balance issues and presence of comorbid overlapping CS syndromes) and CSI scores. Results indicated that 1 in 5 adult new patients may have experienced CS. ANOVA analysis revealed significant difference between fibromyalgia and chronic spinal pain patients; significant difference due to subjective dizziness; significant difference between the number of positive answers in the CSI-Part B for the CSI>40 subjects and subjects with 2 or more positive answers on CSI Part B compared to those with none/one positive answer. Chiropractors should consider using a validated CS screening tool, such as the CSI, for all new patients, and implementing adjunctive, evidence-based CS clinical management strategies.
Novel Non-Pickling Combination Tanning for Chrome-free Leather Based on Reactive Benzenesulphonate and Tannic Acid
Authors: Xiao Yuanhang , Wang Chunhua , Sang Jun , Lin Wei
Published: September 2021

A non-pickling combination tanning based on reactive benzenesulphonate (rBS) and Tannic acid (TA) has been developed for the chrome-free leather manufacturing. By optimizing the tanning process, the two-bath combination tanning with 4% rBS and 10% TA at the final pH 3.0-3.5 can raise the shrinkage temperature (Ts) of goatskins to ~86°C. Morphological analysis results reveal that the chrome-free leather exhibits a clear even grain surface and isolated collagen fiber network structure. The novel combination tanning approach not only improves light fastness, but also confers high physical and mechanical properties to the chrome-free leather which can meet the Chinese standard requirements for furniture leather and shoe upper leather. The non-pickling tanning without use of salt or acid is also benefit to clean leather-making production.
A CONCEPÇÃO E A PERSPECTIVA FILOSÓFICA SOBRE O MODELO DE FAMÍLIA EUDEMONISTA FRENTE AO ENTENDIMENTO MAJORITÁRIO DE VÍNCULO BIOLÓGICO COMO ELEMENTO CARACTERIZADOR DA ENTIDADE FAMILIAR
Authors: Dantas da Silva Gabriela
Published: September 2021

The main topic of this article is to analyze the philosophical contributions on the subject and to criticize the State's actions as an entity that supports this family model. In a second moment, emphasis is given to the philosophical contributions of Immanuel Kant and Aristotle on morals and ethics, extending them to the family and social sphere. The concept of the Eudemonist Family with great Aristotelian influence, as well as some of the main contemporary family entities in brief contextualization, is also presented, to finally address the main problem of this article: the legal challenges of the Eudemonist family in the face of the majority understanding of biological bond as a characterizing element of the family entity. In conclusion, the philosophical nature is of great importance for the understanding of these new conceptions of the family, since the Brazilian legal system did not, in fact, contemplate the experience of society, not giving up texts that were expressly discriminatory and that excluded fundamental rights of individuals.
DIREITO REAL DE HABITAÇÃO: CONFLITO ENTRE O DIREITO REAL DE HABITAÇÃO E O DIREITO À HERANÇA, E A POSSÍVEL MITIGAÇÃO NO CASO CONCRETO POR MEIO DO JUÍZO DE PONDERAÇÃO
Authors: Duarte Pinto Gabriela
Published: September 2021

The real property law is a legal institution of civil law, introduced in the Civil Code of 1916 by Status of Women Married - Law nº 4.121 / 1962, which required numerous requirements for its grant and maintenance, namely, (a) were married under the regime of community property; (b) during his lifetime; (c) and remained widow; (d) subject to the inheritance share, the property should be for the family residence and, finally, (e) were the only asset of this nature to inventory. With the advent of the Civil Code of 2002, however, it was extended to all property regime, removed the final term and with the Domestic Partnership Act, It was no longer needed that it was the only good of that nature to inventory. It was questioned the extent of its application in this case and the need for consideration to not fade the right to inheritance. Analyzed the rights involved, Right to inheritance, Property Rights, Right to living and the Real Property Law. It was concluded that the interpreter of the Law must, before the case, carry out the judgment of balancing the conflicting fundamental Rights so that there is maximum preservation of conflicting values, and hence the greatest achievement of constitutional values.
An Emerging Strategy for the Development of Culturally Relevant Scales to Capture Aspects of Students’ Socio-Emotional Learning and Social Support for Learning.
Authors: Yorke Louise , Wole Darge , Rose Pauline
Published: September 2021

Existing research on students’ socio-emotional learning and social support for learning in the Global South is limited and most scales that have been developed to measure these aspects of students’ learning and development originate in the Global North. We outline our emerging strategy for capturing student socio-emotional learning and social support for learning in the context of Ethiopia, which may have relevance for other researchers seeking to explore this area of study in Ethiopia or in other related contexts. We propose that considering aspects of students’ socio-emotional learning and social support for learning—in addition to foundational skills of numeracy and literacy—can help to move towards a more expansive and holistic understanding of learning.
Influence of light irradiation on the charge-accumulation-type potential-induced degradation of n-type front-emitter crystalline Si photovoltaic modules
Authors: Zhao Rongrong , Thi Cam Tu Huynh , Masuda Atsushi , Ohdaira Keisuke
Published: September 2021

We investigated the influence of light irradiation on the charge-accumulation-type potential-induced degradation (PID) of n-type front-emitter (n-FE) crystalline silicon (c-Si) photovoltaic (PV) modules. A PID test under one-sun irradiation leads to faster reductions of short-circuit current–density (J
sc) and open-circuit voltage (V
oc) compared to the case of a PID test in the dark. This indicates that light irradiation accelerates the charge-accumulation-type PID of the n-FE PV modules. The J
sc and V
oc reductions become slower under irradiation without ultraviolet (UV) light, showing almost the same time dependence as the PID test in the dark. The acceleration of PID by the addition of UV light may be explained by the excitation of electrons at K0 centers in silicon nitride (SiN
x
) and their faster drift to the surface by the electric field applied to SiN
x
.
Self-Refine Learning For Data-Centric Deep Learning
Authors: Guo Tong
Published: September 2021

In industry NLP application, our manually labeled data has a certain number of noise data. We present a simple method to find the noise data and remove them. We select the noise data whose human label is not contained in the top-K model's predictions. The experiment result shows that our method works. For industry deep learning application, our method improve the text classification accuracy from 80.5% to 90.6% in dev dataset, and improve the human-evaluation accuracy from 83.2% to 90.1%.  The self-predict and self-drop method of this paper can not improve the accuracy to more than 95%, without human labeling again for the training dataset. 
«Et io ne vidi uno in Napoli». Orientalismo e processi di patrimonializzazione dei femminielli napoletani
Authors: Vesce Maria Carolina
Published: September 2021

In Naples, as in several other cities of the Campania region (Italy), the word femminiello/femminella “traditionally” refers to effeminate men who behave and act as women. In the last decade femminielli/femminelle were the subject of a true heritagization process, intended to enhace and capitalize their “ancient identity”, now considered on the verge of extinction. Nonetheless, still today, people who self-identify as femminiello/femminella embody an “old-fashioned way” ideal of femininity, sometimes claiming the specificity of their local identity, and distancing themselves from the LGBTQI+ representations and identities. Based on the data collected during a long term fieldwork in Campania, this essay focuses on the processes of production, reproduction and manipulation of the femminielli/femminelle’ identities. More specifically by crossing literature and field notes, I will propose an analysis of the interactions between an orientalist and colonial imaginary that “produces” the femminiello/femminella as otherness (southern) and the reversal that occurs with the distinctive claim of gender experiences embodied by people who still identify as femminielli/femminelle. How do these imaginaries interact? And what implicit stereotypes lurk in such representations?
Achille tra le rose (negli anni di Napoleone). Femminilizzazione del guerriero nella Penthesilea di Heinrich von Kleist
Authors: Stella Massimo
Published: September 2021

The hypothesis I advance in this article is that the character of Achilles in Heinrich von Kleist’s Penthesilea embodies the Object of desire of the female protagonist, the queen of the Amazons. By the word “Object”, I mean the interiorised and imaginary representation Penthesilea phantasises within herself about an otherwise unknown “thing” desired which finally takes the feminine features of a tender and harmless boy wearing crowns and garlands of roses, an “Achilles among the roses”, as it were – the word “rose” being both the anagram of “eros” and the emblem of the female sex. In the course of the analysis, I argue that this “mirage” of Penthesilea, the “thing desired”, is the projection of the “Thing itself”, maternal love, which, being unredeemedly lost to her, turns into a persecutory ghost. My understanding of von Kleist’s Penthesilea is not rooted in Freudian and Lacanian psychoanalysis, but both in the historical and political context in which the tragedy of the queen of the Amazon was conceived and in the transcendental and idealistic philosophy of the Subject.
S. Del Gaudio (ed.), Italijs’ko-Ukrajins’ki Kontrastyvni Studiji: Movoznavstvo, Literaturoznavstvo, Pereklad/Studi Contrastivi Italo-Ucraini: Linguistica, Letteratura, Traduzione/Italian-Ukrainian Contrastive Studies: Linguistics, Literature, Translation,
Authors: Gherbezza Ettore
Published: September 2021

Book Review
M. Fin, H. Steenwijk (a cura di), Gerasim Zelić e il suo tempo, Firenze University Press, Firenze 2019, pp. 125.
Authors: Mitrović Marija
Published: September 2021

Book Review
G. Giuliano, C. Criveller, M. Spivak, A. Frison (a cura di), Simvolizm i poetika prostranstva v tvorčestve Andreja Belogo, Nestor-Istorija, Sankt-Peterburg 2020, pp. 324.
Authors: Morabito Martina
Published: September 2021

Book Review
How to Overcome the Crisis of Symbolism with the Help of ‘Populist Ideas’? V.F. Chodasevič’s Critical Essays of the Early 1910s and the Article Nadson
Authors: Lugovskaia Daria Alekseevna
Published: September 2021

This paper analyses V.F. Chodasevič’s early 1910s critical essays and his article Nadson, read in 1912 in the Literary and Artistic Club. Although the article did not play an important role in the critic’s work, because it was only during the exile period that Chodasevič criticized Nadson’s poetry, yet it represents the first example of Chodasevič’s appeal to the aesthetic model proposed by the utilitarian critics and the ideas of patriotism and civic virtues (graždanstvennost’), which were important in his poetry and later critic works. Chodasevič delivered a speech at the Club’s anniversary meeting which conveys his views on how to possibly overcome the crisis of symbolism. According to the poet, literature should restore and fully embody the ideals of the early Aesthetic Movement. The aim of the present research is to analyse the concepts, aesthetic ideas, and quotations used by Chodasevič in Nadson, and ascertain which sources influenced the author and how they relate to the literary context of the time (early 1910s). I argue that Chodasevič’s text echoes, to some extent, symbolist aesthetics while also reflecting elements of radical critique of early Aestheticism. Chodasevič only reproduces politically radical intentions that were present in the texts written by symbolists after 1907. Chodasevič’s article and his social views correspond to the evolution of Blok’s thought during the so-called ‘synthesis’ period; he, in fact, employs Blok’s ideas and introduces indirect quotations from his essays. Chodasevič’s speech at the Literary and Artistic Club was received as advancing principles which were seen too eclectic and old-fashioned, and which, most importantly, did not fit into the established literary context. Notwithstanding Chodasevič’s strategy of turning to Belinskij’s and Pisarev’s literary views was unsuccessful, since his intentions were misunderstood by the audience, he followed a similar pattern in several essays from the early 1910s. Chodasevič used symbolist aesthetic ideas in a number of texts written at the end of the exile period, where it can be seen that his approach and social and political views changed.
First Steps: Synthetic Ammonia in the United States
Authors: Travis Anthony Stewart
Published: September 2021

The synthetic ammonia industry, originally based on Fritz Haber's 1909 invention of a catalytic high-pressure method as scaled up by Carl Bosch at BASF, grew globally in the years following World War I, based on the processes of Brunner, Mond & Co. (Britain), Luigi Casale (Italy), Georges Claude (France), and Giacomo Fauser (Italy). The ammonia was mainly converted into ammonium sulphate fertilizer. There was less impetus in the United States for taking up these developments, because America relied on ammonium sulphate from its by-product coke ovens, sodium nitrate (Chilean nitrate) from South America, ammonia from coal gas works, and calcium cyanamide as manufactured by the American Cyanamid Company. Even when a synthetic ammonia industry started up in the United States, it was on a smaller scale than in Europe. However there emerged just before the Wall Street Crash two major producers of synthetic ammonia, Allied Chemical and Du Pont. This article presents a historical reconstruction of the early synthetic ammonia industry in the United States focusing on the 1920s, paying particular attention to Du Pont's success, which relied on the ammonia process of Casale. Standard accounts suggest that Du Pont acquired Casale technology as the result of a straightforward business acquisition. However, the situation, as shown here, was far more complex. Du Pont had to engage in aggresive litigation in order to acquire rights to the Casale process in 1927.
Disinfectants: Use of Different Types of Sanitization Techniques in 18th and 19th Centuries Britain and India
Authors: Chetan Chetan
Published: September 2021

The article focuses on the use of different kinds of disinfectants used for sanitization and cleaning of public and private places for curbing the spread of diseases from one place to another. Multiple methods were employed for disinfection; some of which are easily accessible to the common people while others were particularly used in infirmaries and hospitals at the time of treatment. The article also shows that disinfectants were supplement to medicine and they target limiting of the contagion to a space whereas medicines were given for the treatment of patients. Historically, the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries witnessed unprecedented development in the field of chemistry which led to the discoveries of different types of antiseptic solutions and disinfectants apparently endorsed by the germ theory.
 
Image Credit: Wellcome Library, London. Wellcome Images images@wellcome.ac.uk http://wellcomeimages.org
Can Non-Recyclable Plastic Waste Be Made Environmentally Sustainable?
Authors: Campanella Luigi , Suffritti Pino
Published: September 2021

After death the fraction of living matter which is not biodegraded (shells, bones, corals, carbonaceous deposits) becomes environmentally sustainable. This is not the case for plastics so that these wastes should be either recycled or made environmentally inert and stored in secure repositories as a resource for future generations. Chemistry has offered different solutions to this problem, and each brings about advantages and disadvantages when compared to other options. One further possible route could consist in the enrichment of the plastics waste in carbon content (“carbonization”), in analogy with the production of charcoal from wood, but we hope to stimulate a debate about all the other possible routes among scientists and engineers in the involved fields.