bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Evaluating a community respiratory physiotherapy service for children with neurodisability
Authors: Smith Samantha , Flanigan Moira , Haynes Sarah , Michael Anastasia , Wolff Toni
Published: March 2022

Background

Children with neurodisability are at an increased risk of respiratory problems and complications, which often result in prolonged, frequent hospital admissions and are the biggest cause of mortality in this client group. The Children’s Community Respiratory Physiotherapy Service (CCRPS) was established in 2010 to support children with severe neurodisabilities at home during acute chest infections and to prevent emergency department attendances and hospital admissions. This service evaluation looked at patient/parent satisfaction and prevented admissions to ensure clinical and cost-effectiveness, despite the rising demand for the service.

Methods

Over a 3-month period, patients and parents/carers on the CCRPS caseload were given a Picker feedback survey following 100 emergency visits from the team. The number of prevented hospital admissions for respiratory tract infection over 12 months (April 2019–March 2020) was identified from existing CCRPS data and hospital admissions costs saved were estimated.

Results

The Picker survey responses were extremely positive with all respondents reporting that they felt well looked after and that the main reason for the emergency visit was dealt with well. Based on key indicators, the CCRPS prevented 182 hospital admissions for respiratory tract infection in 2019/2020, equating to 1638 bed days and estimated cost savings ranging between £751 728 and £1 009 986.

Conclusions

The Picker survey response demonstrates the positive impact that the CCRPS has on both quality of life and experience for patients and families. The CCRPS rapid response service prevents hospital admissions for respiratory tract infections in children and young people with severe neurodisability and the cost savings from admissions prevented allows the service to more than pay for itself.
Epithelial RAC1-dependent cytoskeleton dynamics controls cell mechanics, cell shedding and barrier integrity in intestinal inflammation
Authors: Martínez-Sánchez Luz del Carmen , Ngo Phuong Anh , Pradhan Rashmita , Becker Lukas-Sebastian , Boehringer David , Soteriou Despina , Kubankova Marketa , Schweitzer Christine , Koch Tatyana , Thonn Veronika , Erkert Lena , Stolzer Iris , Günther Claudia , Becker Christoph , Weigmann Benno , Klewer Monika , Daniel Christoph , Amann Kerstin , Tenzer Stefan , Atreya Raja , Bergo Martin , Brakebusch Cord , Watson Alastair J M , Guck Jochen , Fabry Ben , Atreya Imke , Neurath Markus F , López-Posadas Rocío
Published: March 2022

Objective

Increased apoptotic shedding has been linked to intestinal barrier dysfunction and development of inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD). In contrast, physiological cell shedding allows the renewal of the epithelial monolayer without compromising the barrier function. Here, we investigated the role of live cell extrusion in epithelial barrier alterations in IBD.

Design

Taking advantage of conditional GGTase and RAC1 knockout mice in intestinal epithelial cells (Pggt1biΔIECandRac1iΔIECmice), intravital microscopy, immunostaining, mechanobiology, organoid techniques and RNA sequencing, we analysed cell shedding alterations within the intestinal epithelium. Moreover, we examined human gut tissue and intestinal organoids from patients with IBD for cell shedding alterations and RAC1 function.

Results

EpithelialPggt1bdeletion led to cytoskeleton rearrangement and tight junction redistribution, causing cell overcrowding due to arresting of cell shedding that finally resulted in epithelial leakage and spontaneous mucosal inflammation in the small and to a lesser extent in the large intestine. Both in vivo and in vitro studies (knockout mice, organoids) identified RAC1 as a GGTase target critically involved in prenylation-dependent cytoskeleton dynamics, cell mechanics and epithelial cell shedding. Moreover, inflamed areas of gut tissue from patients with IBD exhibited funnel-like structures, signs of arrested cell shedding and impaired RAC1 function. RAC1 inhibition in human intestinal organoids caused actin alterations compatible with arresting of cell shedding.

Conclusion

Impaired epithelial RAC1 function causes cell overcrowding and epithelial leakage thus inducing chronic intestinal inflammation. Epithelial RAC1 emerges as key regulator of cytoskeletal dynamics, cell mechanics and intestinal cell shedding. Modulation of RAC1 might be exploited for restoration of epithelial integrity in the gut of patients with IBD.
Outpatient cardiac rehabilitation dose after acute coronary syndrome in a nationwide cohort
Authors: Kanaoka Koshiro , Iwanaga Yoshitaka , Nakai Michikazu , Nishioka Yuichi , Myojin Tomoya , Kubo Shinichiro , Okada Katsuki , Soeda Tsunenari , Noda Tatsuya , Sakata Yasushi , Miyamoto Yoshihiro , Saito Yoshihiko , Imamura Tomoaki
Published: March 2022

Objective

Cardiac rehabilitation (CR) is effective in patients with acute coronary syndrome (ACS); however, CR programmes have not been fully implemented. This study aimed to reveal the current practice of outpatient CR and the dose–effect relationship of CR in real-world settings.

Methods

We performed a nationwide retrospective cohort study using the National Database of Health Insurance Claims and Specific Health Checkups of Japan. Patients with ACS who underwent percutaneous coronary intervention between April 2014 and March 2018 were included. We analysed the implementation rate and dose of outpatient CR and the association between dose and outcomes.

Results

Out of 202 320 patients who underwent percutaneous coronary intervention for ACS, a total of 20 444 (10%) underwent outpatient CR. The median (IQR) number of total CR sessions was 9 (3–17), and the median (IQR) duration for each session was 60 (42–60) min. Patients were divided into four groups according to the total number of sessions (≤9 times or ≥10 times) and the duration per session (<50 min or ≥50 min). Compared with the low-number/short-duration group, the adjusted HR for all-cause mortality was 1.00 (95% CI 0.80 to 1.24, p=0.97) in the low-number/long-duration group, 0.63 (95% CI 0.46 to 0.87, p=0.005) in the high-number/short-duration group and 0.74 (95% CI 0.60 to 0.92, p=0.008) in the high-number/long-duration group, respectively.

Conclusion

We found that the participation rate for outpatient CR after ACS was low and the doses of sessions vary in real-world settings. A higher number of total sessions of outpatient CR is associated with a better prognosis irrespective of the session’s duration.
Carotid artery endarterectomy in patients with symptomatic non-stenotic carotid artery disease
Authors: Nardi Valentina , Benson John C , Larson Anthony S , Brinjikji Waleed , Saba Luca , Meyer Fredric B , Lanzino Giuseppe , Lerman Amir , Savastano Luis E
Published: March 2022

Object

We sought to determine the safety and efficacy in secondary stroke prevention of carotid endarterectomy (CEA) in patients with symptomatic non-stenotic carotid artery disease (SyNC).

Methods

This was a single-centre retrospective case series. All patients who underwent CEA for unilateral anterior circulation cerebrovascular events with ipsilateral <50% carotid stenosis from 2002 to 2020 were included. Imaging hallmarks including the degree of luminal stenosis and the presence of various vulnerable plaque characteristics (eg, intraplaque haemorrhage (IPH) on MR angiography, ulceration or low-density plaque on CT angiography) were assessed. The presence of vulnerable plaque characteristics was compared between arteries ipsilateral to the ischaemic event and contralateral arteries. The prevalence of perioperative/intraoperative complications, as well as recurrent ischaemic events at follow-up was determined.

Results

Thirty-two patients were included in the analysis, of which 25.0% were female. Carotid arteries ipsilateral to an ischaemic event had a significantly higher prevalence of IPH when compared with contralateral arteries (80.0% vs 0.0%; p<0.001). There were no intraoperative complications. One patient (3.1%) developed symptoms of transient ipsilateral ischaemia 1 day following CEA which resolved without treatment. In a median follow-up of 18.0 months (IQR 5.0–36.0), only one patient (3.1%) experienced a transient neurologic deficit with complete resolution (annualised rate of recurrent stroke after CEA of 1.5% for a total follow-up of 788 patient-months following CEA). All other patients (31/32, 96.9%) were free of recurrent ischaemic events.

Conclusion

CEA appears to be safe and well-tolerated in patients with SyNC. Additional studies with larger cohorts and longer follow-up intervals are needed in order to determine the role of CEA in this patient population.
Clinical and radiological features of medullary infarction caused by spontaneous vertebral artery dissection
Authors: Yu Chun , Zhu Zhu , Li Siying , Xu Yi , Yan Wei , Kang Xiaocui , Li Yao , Dong Qiang , Tang Weijun , Han Xiang
Published: March 2022

Background and purpose

Medullary infarction (MI) caused by spontaneous vertebral artery dissection (sVAD) is an important type of stroke. It is important to distinguish sVAD from other causes of stroke since the treatment strategies and prognosis were different between them. In this study, we aimed to explore the clinical and radiological features of MI in patients with acute MI caused by sVAD.

Methods

Patients with acute MI caused by sVAD and non-sVAD in a single tertiary hospital were enrolled from 2010 to 2020. Epidemiologic, clinical and image features were collected and analysed. MI lesions were categorised into three levels rostrocaudally and four arterial groups: anteromedial, anterolateral, lateral and posterior.

Results

A total of 128 patients with MI were enrolled with 47 cases of sVAD and 81 cases of non-sVAD. Patients with sVAD were younger than those with non-sVAD (med 44 years old vs 58 years old). The sVAD group was less likely to have hypertension (44.68% vs 67.90%; p=0.010) and diabetes (19.15% vs 45.69%; p=0.003), but more likely to have non-sudden onset (27.66% vs 9.87%, p=0.009), minor neck injury (19.15% vs 1.23%; p=0.001) and headache (46.81% vs 7.41%; p=0.000). Vertically, sVAD became more common in caudal medulla than in rostral medulla. Horizontally, the sVAD group was more likely to have lateral MI (91.48% vs 2.96%, p=0.000). In multivariable logistic regression analysis, age, non-sudden onset and headache were independently associated with sVAD with ORs of 0.935 (95% CI 0.892 to 0.981, p=0.006), 3.507 (95% CI 1.060 to 11.599, p=0.040) and 5.426 (95% CI 1.673 to 17.599, p=0.005).

Conclusion

sVAD was not uncommon in patients with MI, especially in patients with lateral MI. Young patients with headache and non-sudden onset should remind clinician the possibility of sVAD.
Landscape of tobacco control in sub-Saharan Africa
Authors: Egbe Catherine O , Magati Peter , Wanyonyi Emma , Sessou Leonce , Owusu-Dabo Ellis , Ayo-Yusuf Olalekan A
Published: March 2022

Yearly, tobacco use kills about 8 million people globally, 80% of whom live in low/middle-income countries. Given sub-Saharan Africa’s (SSA) rapidly increasing and youthful population, growing incomes and the increased presence of the tobacco industry, the number of tobacco users is growing. The region is predicted to face a heavier burden of tobacco-related diseases and deaths in the future. We examined the policy, advocacy, economic and media landscapes of tobacco control as well as tobacco industry interference in SSA. We also highlighted key challenges and priorities for intervention in the region. Their vast financial power has enabled transnational tobacco companies to interfere in tobacco control and slow down policy implementation efforts in SSA. Despite recent gains, inadequate investment in tobacco control has prevented effective tobacco control implementation in SSA. Other challenges include limited locally generated evidence and limited support from mainstream media to back policy and advocacy efforts. Finally, taxation, which is one of the most effective tools for tobacco control, is not yet adequately used in SSA partly due to non-harmonised taxation rates as well as exaggerated and false claims about the potential impacts of increasing taxes, especially that it will increase smuggling. Key priorities to address these challenges include continued strategic funding, capacity building of government and advocacy personnel to strengthen tobacco control governance, regional and institutional cooperation, harmonisation of subregional tax policies, cooperation among international funders, and increased industry monitoring and research in SSA.
Assessing the solutions to tobacco control’s funding gap problem
Authors: Rose Taylor Sara , Forrest Ryan
Published: March 2022

Since its entry into force in February 2005, the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) has had many significant achievements. It is one of the most widely ratified treaties within the United Nations; its Conference of the Parties has adopted many high-quality implementation guidelines, and implementation of the policy guidance in the treaty and its guidelines have decreased tobacco consumption and prevalence. Despite the effectiveness of these measures, however, FCTC implementation has been highly uneven across countries. A medium-term strategic plan was launched to clearly articulate a small number of priority areas for action in order to accelerate the pace of progress—theGlobal Strategy to Accelerate Tobacco Control (2019–2025)—but several barriers block its success, including the chronic lack of sustainable, long-term funding. Governments need adequate funds in order to implement FCTC policies and interventions, but many do not have the necessary resources. The global funding gap for tobacco control has been estimated at US$427.4 billion, with no signs of shrinking in the face of the ongoing pandemic. This paper is concerned with the analysis of solutions to the funding gap problem, assessing possibilities according to feasibility, opportunities, and past or potential effectiveness. Existing solutions include Official Development Assistance, FCTC extrabudgetarily funded projects like the FCTC 2030 project and domestic resource mobilisation via tobacco taxation. The paper will also consider new options including pooled funding mechanisms. Ultimately, a combination of solutions must be pursued in order to ensure Parties’ national tobacco control budgets are funded in line with FCTC andGlobal Strategypriorities.
Global tobacco advertising, promotion and sponsorship regulation: what’s old, what’s new and where to next?
Authors: Freeman Becky , Watts Christina , Astuti Putu Ayu Swandewi
Published: March 2022

Tobacco advertising, promotion and sponsorship (TAPS) bans are a cornerstone of comprehensive tobacco control laws. Global progress in implementing TAPS bans has been enabled by the adoption of the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control. Innovative TAPS policies are in place internationally and include: point-of-sale display bans, plain packaging of products, industry spending on TAPS disclosure reporting, bans on retailer incentive programmes, and regulation of TAPS in entertainment and online media. However, there is an over-reliance on entertainment and digital content producers and platforms to self-regulate TAPS. Ensuring TAPS laws are regularly examined to limit loopholes and remove exemptions is crucial to continued success. The definition of what constitutes TAPS can allow the tobacco industry to deploy corporate communication and political campaigns that skirt TAPS bans. TAPS laws must also maintain pace with the changing media landscape, which includes monitoring and reporting TAPS that cross international borders, primarily through digital media platforms. Limiting tobacco retail supply will also serve to prevent the continued undermining of TAPS bans. Leveraging global corporation to ensure enforcement of TAPS bans across borders is urgently needed.
Moving targets: how the rapidly changing tobacco and nicotine landscape creates advertising and promotion policy challenges
Authors: Ling Pamela M , Kim Minji , Egbe Catherine O , Patanavanich Roengrudee , Pinho Mariana , Hendlin Yogi
Published: March 2022

Tobacco, nicotine and related products have and continue to change rapidly, creating new challenges for policies regulating their advertising, promotion, sponsorship and sales. This paper reviews recent commercial product offerings and the regulatory challenges associated with them. This includes electronic nicotine delivery systems, electronic non-nicotine delivery systems, personal vaporisers, heated tobacco products, nicotine salts, tobacco-free nicotine products, other nicotine products resembling nicotine replacement therapies, and various vitamin and cannabis products that share delivery devices or marketing channels with tobacco products. There is substantial variation in the availability of these tobacco, nicotine, vaporised, and related products globally, and policies regulating these products also vary substantially between countries. Many of these products avoid regulation by exploiting loopholes in the definition of tobacco or nicotine products, or by occupying a regulatory grey area where authority is unclear. These challenges will increase as the tobacco industry continues to diversify its product portfolio, and weaponises ‘tobacco harm reduction’ rhetoric to undermine policies limiting marketing, promotion and taxation of tobacco, nicotine and related products. Tobacco control policy often lags behind the evolution of the industry, which may continue to sell these products for years while regulations are established, refined or enforced. Policies that anticipate commercial tobacco, nicotine and related product and marketing changes and that are broad enough to cover these product developments are needed.
Where to next for countries with high tobacco taxes? The potential for greater control of tobacco pricing through licensing regulation
Authors: Scollo Michelle , Branston J Robert
Published: March 2022

Optimising the taxation of tobacco products should be among the highest priorities for health and hence economic policy in every country. The WHO Technical Manual on Tobacco Tax Policy and Administration released in April 2021 provides invaluable advice, including 26 best practice recommendations on policy design, administrative efficiency and addressing industry tactics to circumvent tobacco tax increases. Introducing and increasing tobacco taxes is the most important tobacco control measure for any jurisdiction. The effects of simple tax structures, high tax levels, and frequent above-inflation increases in specific excise duties can be enhanced through strict controls on packaging (including pack size), product design, and discounting. However, even with such measures, tobacco companies can continue to undermine the effectiveness of tax policy by offering some products in their ranges at very low prices, as well as gradually and selectively increasing the prices of some but not all products after tax increases. This paper is aimed at policymakers in countries that have already adopted best practice tax policy. It explores the idea of wholesale price capping combined with retail licensing to address the problems of brand proliferation, dispersion of prices, cushioning and strategic under/overshifting of tax increases, thereby radically and sustainably increasing the effectiveness of tobacco tax policy while also raising additional tax revenue for governments by reducing industry profitability.
Retail endgame strategies: reduce tobacco availability and visibility and promote health equity
Authors: Kong Amanda Y , Henriksen Lisa
Published: March 2022

An increasing number of countries have set tobacco endgame goals that target dramatic reductions in smoking prevalence. To achieve those targets and promote health equity, policies are needed to reduce the retail supply and visibility of tobacco products. Focusing on retailer reduction strategies and tobacco display bans, this special communication reviews solution-oriented research about the retail environment. It highlights examples of policy implementation and identifies data needs and research gaps for designing and evaluating retail policies to promote population health equitably.
Illicit trade in tobacco products: recent trends and coming challenges
Authors: Paraje Guillermo , Stoklosa Michal , Blecher Evan
Published: March 2022

Background

Illicit trade in tobacco products is a menace to the goal of eliminating tobacco consumption. Although tax policy is very effective in reducing consumption, illicit trade can reduce (though not eliminate) its effectiveness.

Methods

This article discusses the recent evolution of illicit trade and the context in which it occurred; the new methods that have been developed to measure it and, finally, the challenges in the next phase in the control of illicit trade.

Results

There has been a remarkable stability in the penetration of cigarette illicit trade in the past decade. Such a stability, however, occurred in a world of shrinking tobacco consumption, implying a decreasing absolute illicit trade. Most countries have progressed in increasing tobacco taxes and changing tax structures. Prices of illicit cigarettes follow legal cigarette prices. Concomitantly, many new studies, independent from the tobacco industry, have been conducted allowing for better understanding of the illicit trade and providing inputs to its solution. The entry into force of the WHO FCTC Protocol to Eliminate Illicit Trade in Tobacco Products provides both a global and a national policy framework to further curb illicit trade. Instruments such as track-and-trace systems must be promoted and adopted to maximise reductions in illicit trade.

Conclusions

Global efforts to curb the illicit trade in tobacco products are gaining momentum and progress has been made in many parts of the world. The next decade can witness a decisive decrease in tobacco consumption, both licit and illicit, if countries further engage in international collaboration.
Smoking cessation: health system challenges and opportunities
Authors: Pipe Andrew L , Evans William , Papadakis Sophia
Published: March 2022

The systematic integration of evidence-based tobacco treatment has yet to be broadly viewed as a standard-of-care. The Framework Convention on Tobacco Control recommends the provision of support for tobacco cessation. We argue that the provision of smoking cessation services in clinical settings is a fundamental clinical responsibility and permits the opportunity to more effectively assist with cessation. The role of clinicians in prioritising smoking cessation is essential in all settings. Clinical benefits of implementing cessation services in hospital settings have been recognised for three decades—but have not been consistently provided. The Ottawa Model for Smoking Cessation has used an ‘organisational change’ approach to its introduction and has served as the basis for the introduction of cessation programmes in hospital and primary care settings in Canada and elsewhere. The significance of smoking cessation dwarfs that of many preventive interventions in primary care. Compelling evidence attests to the importance of providing cessation services as part of cancer treatment, but implementation of such programmes has been slow. We recognise that the provision of such services must reflect the realities and resources of a particular health system. In low-income and middle-income countries, access to treatment facilities pose unique challenges. The integration of cessation programmes with tuberculosis control services may offer opportunities; and standardisation of peri-operative care to include smoking cessation may not require additional resources. Mobile phones afford unique opportunities for interactive cessation programming. Health system change is fundamental to improving the provision of cessation services; clinicians can be powerful advocates for such change.
Tobacco control in Asia-Pacific: wins, challenges and targets
Authors: Mackay Judith Mary , Dorotheo E Ulysses , Assunta Mary , Ritthiphakdee Bungon
Published: March 2022

For many decades, the international tobacco industry has set its sights on Asia, due to the large population numbers, the high prevalence of male smokers who might shift to its brands, and the extremely low number of female smokers who could possibly be induced into starting smoking. Because of US trade threats against several Asian countries in the 1980s, Asia became quickly aware that tobacco control involved politics, legislation, economics and trade. Several Asian jurisdictions pioneered tobacco control measures, and the Western Pacific is still the only WHO region where all countries have ratified the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC). Progress needs to be accelerated to reduce the still high male smoking prevalence and maintain the low female prevalence by fully implementing the WHO FCTC as part of achieving sustainable development, even while grappling with the looming epidemic of new products, holding the companies accountable, and protecting tobacco control policies against constant industry interference.
South Asia’s evolving tobacco hydra: moving from quandary to hope
Authors: Gupta Prakash C , Puntambekar Namrata , Assunta Mary
Published: March 2022

The South Asian region occupies a unique place in global tobacco control because of a broad spectrum of widely used tobacco products and the consequent mix of local and transnational tobacco industries. Cigarette use is especially high among males in many countries, while bidis are widely used in India, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, and are very inexpensive. Smokeless tobacco use is a global problem, but the bulk of use is in South Asia and there is emerging promotion of newly developed tobacco and nicotine products across the region. With the transnational cigarette industry contributing a significant amount in taxes, the bidi industry employing millions of workers and many farmers engaged in tobacco farming, the industry is powerful and exploits this when countering proposed advancements in tobacco control policy. Despite industry interference and major challenges, this region has achieved remarkable successes in tobacco control, including large pictorial warnings that cover up to 80%–90% of the pack in some countries, stringent rules on depiction of tobacco in movies, bans on advertising and promotion, and smoke-free public places. Key challenges include increasing the tax component of retail prices and reducing tax concessions, regulating newly developed products and countering the aggressive tactics of the tobacco industry. Strategies to advance tobacco control in the region may also include standardised packaging of tobacco products, sustained mass media campaigns to warn the population of the harms of tobacco use and promote use of available cost-covered cessation services, and supply-side measures such as vendor licensing.
Predicting fish weight using photographic image analysis: a case study of broad whitefish in the lower Mackenzie River watershed
Authors: Gutzmann Sarah B. , Hodgson Emma E. , Braun Douglas , Moore Jonathan W. , Hovel Rachel A.
Published: March 2022

Many small-scale fisheries are remote in nature, making data collection logistically difficult. Thus, there is a need for accessible solutions that address the data gaps present in these fisheries. One possible solution is to incorporate photography into community- or harvest-based monitoring frameworks and employ these images to estimate biological data. Here, we test this approach using łuk dagaii, or broad whitefish, Coregonus nasus (Pallus, 1776) in the Gwich'in Settlement Area, a remote region in the Mackenzie River system in Canada's Northwest Territories. We used photographs taken by Gwich'in collaborators using a simple, standardized set-up to ask the question: how accurately can weight be estimated from a photo? Using random forest models based on morphometric photograph measurements as well as season and location of harvest, we predicted broad whitefish weight to within 13% of true weight (257 g, for fish weighing an average of 2036 g). The model predictions were well distributed in their residuals for most fish, though we discuss biases at low and high weights. Image analysis is a simple, low cost, and accessible method that may contribute to ongoing, community/harvest-based fishery data collection where fish length (measured) and weight (predicted) can be tracked through time.
Review on coal fly ash generation and utilization for resolving mercury contamination issues in Central Asia: Kazakhstan
Authors: Satayeva A. , Baimenov A. , Azat S. , Zhantikeyev U. , Seisenova A. , Tauanov Z.
Published: March 2022

The generation of coal fly ash (CFA) in coal-fired power plants worldwide has been a major concern over the past few decades. CFA as a by-product possesses unique properties and chemical composition that could be utilized in resolving mercury contamination issues in Central Asia, particularly in Kazakhstan. This review gives an overview of coal generation capacity and evaluation of the current state of electricity production and ecological concerns related to CFA accumulation. We provide a detailed comparison of the physical properties and chemical compositions of three types of CFAs from Kazakhstani power plants, and present potential approaches to help alleviate mercury contamination issues. Furthermore, this review highlights the current state of mercury contamination in artificial Lake Balkyldak and in the Nura River of the north and central regions of Kazakhstan. Of particular interest is the appropriate utilization of CFAs in resolving mercury contamination issues by highlighting and comparing the state-of-the-art technology of porous and nonporous materials currently reported in the literature.
Weighing the importance of animal body size in traditional food systems
Authors: Brammer Jeremy R. , Menzies Allyson K. , Carter Laurence S. , Giroux-Bougard Xavier , Landry-Cuerrier Manuelle , Leblanc Melanie-Louise , Neelin Mikhaela N. , Studd Emily K. , Humphries Murray M.
Published: March 2022

Traditional food systems based on harvest from the local environment are fundamental to the well-being of many communities, but their security is challenged by rapid socio-ecological change. We synthesized literature and data describing how a fundamental form of biodiversity, animal body size, contributes to the security of traditional food systems through relationships with species availability, accessibility, adequacy, and use. We found larger vertebrate species were more available, accessible, and used on a per kilogram basis, particularly for mammals. Conversely, larger species were no more or less adequate from a combined nutritional, health, and cultural perspective. Larger species represented more biomass, and this biomass required less time to harvest, with greater but more variable mean caloric returns over time. Smaller species provided more consistent caloric returns and were harvested during documented shortages of prey. This reliance on species with a range of body sizes is consistent with optimal foraging theory and the evolutionary value of flexibility, and highlights the importance of a biodiverse pool of species for traditional food security in times of change. Our synthesis of published literature and data highlights the many socio-ecological correlates of species size and how these relate to the security of traditional food systems.
On angular features of axial channeling radiation in crystals
Authors: Korotchenko K. B. , Kunashenko Y. P. , Dabagov S. B.
Published: March 2022

Channeling of light relativistic particles in crystals is accompanied by intense radiation emission known as channeling radiation. Typically all calculations of channeling radiation aim in getting the total radiation intensity and its dependence on the parameters of particles and crystals. In the same time, since the discovery, the angular behaviours of channeling radiation have been studied just in a few works, in which only a polar dependence of the radiation intensity near the forward direction is estimated. However, simple analysis of the interaction potential predicts very specific features to be observed in the angular distributions of channeling radiation, especially at axial regime. In this work, for the first time, the expressions for angular and spectral distributions of electromagnetic radiation at axial channeling of relativistic charged particles in thin crystals are analytically refined within the QED theory. Obtained results allows predicting complex structures of radiation intensity and polarisation distributions. The results obtained might be of special interests for experimental studies.
Impact of igneous intrusion and associated ground deformation on the stratigraphic record
Authors: Dobb Emilia M. , Magee Craig , Jackson Christopher A.-L. , Lathrop Bailey , Köpping Jonas
Published: March 2022

The geomorphology and sediment systems of volcanic areas can be influenced by uplift (forced folding) related to subsurface migration and accumulation of magma. Seismic geomorphological analysis presents a unique tool to study how surface morphology and subsurface magma dynamics relate, given seismic reflection data can image buried landscapes and underlying intrusions in 3D at resolutions of only a few metres–decametres. However, differential compaction of the sedimentary sequence above incompressible igneous intrusions during burial modifies palaeosurface morphology. Here we use 3D seismic reflection data from offshore NW Australia to explore how the stratigraphic record of igneous intrusion and associated ground deformation can be unravelled. We focus on a forced fold that likely formed in the Early Cretaceous to accommodate intrusion of magma, but which was later amplified by burial-related differential compaction of the host sedimentary sequence. We show how: (1) marine channels and clinoforms may be deflected by syn-depositional intrusion-induced forced folds; and (2) differential compaction can locally change clinoforms depth post-deposition, potentially leading to erroneous interpretation of shoreline trajectories. Our results demonstrate seismic geomorphological analysis can help us better understand how magma emplacement translates into ground deformation, and how this shapes the landform of volcanic regions.
Survey of Distributed File System Design Choices
Authors: Macko Peter , Hennessey Jason
Published: March 2022

Decades of research on distributed file systems and storage systems exists. New researchers and engineers have a lot of literature to study, but only a comparatively small number of high-level design choices are available when creating a distributed file system. And within each aspect of the system, typically several common approaches are used. So, rather than surveying distributed file systems, this article presents a survey of important design decisions and, within those decisions, the most commonly used options. It also presents a qualitative exploration of their tradeoffs. We include several relatively recent designs and their variations that illustrate other tradeoff choices in the design space, despite being underexplored. In doing so, we provide a primer on distributed file systems, and we also show areas that are overexplored and underexplored, in the hopes of inspiring new research.
General Strong Polarization
Authors: Błasiok Jarosław , Guruswami Venkatesan , Nakkiran Preetum , Rudra Atri , Sudan Madhu
Published: March 2022

Arıkan’s exciting discovery of polar codes has provided an altogether new way to efficiently achieve Shannon capacity. Given a (constant-sized) invertible matrix
M
, a family of polar codes can be associated with this matrix and its ability to approach capacity follows from the
polarization
of an associated [0, 1]-bounded martingale, namely its convergence in the limit to either 0 or 1 with probability 1. Arıkan showed appropriate polarization of the martingale associated with the matrix (
G
2
= ( 1 1 0 1) to get capacity achieving codes. His analysis was later extended to all matrices
M
that satisfy an obvious necessary condition for polarization.

While Arıkan’s theorem does not guarantee that the codes achieve capacity at small blocklengths (specifically in length, which is a polynomial in ( 1ε ) where (ε) is the difference between the capacity of a channel and the rate of the code), it turns out that a “strong” analysis of the polarization of the underlying martingale would lead to such constructions. Indeed for the martingale associated with (
G
2
) such a strong polarization was shown in two independent works (Guruswami and Xia (IEEE IT’15) and Hassani et al. (IEEE IT’14)), thereby resolving a major theoretical challenge associated with the efficient attainment of Shannon capacity.

In this work we extend the result above to cover martingales associated with all matrices that satisfy the necessary condition for (weak) polarization. In addition to being vastly more general, our proofs of strong polarization are (in our view) also much simpler and modular. Key to our proof is a notion of
local polarization
that only depends on the evolution of the martingale in a single time step. We show that local polarization always implies strong polarization. We then apply relatively simple reasoning about conditional entropies to prove local polarization in very general settings. Specifically, our result shows strong polarization over all prime fields and leads to efficient capacity-achieving source codes for compressing arbitrary i.i.d. sources, and capacity-achieving channel codes for arbitrary symmetric memoryless channels. We show how to use our analyses to achieve exponentially small error probabilities at lengths inverse polynomial in the gap to capacity. Indeed we show that we can essentially match any error probability while maintaining lengths that are only inverse polynomial in the gap to capacity.
Disentangle Saliency Detection into Cascaded Detail Modeling and Body Filling
Authors: Song Yue , Tang Hao , Sebe Nicu , Wang Wei
Published: March 2022

Salient object detection has been long studied to identify the most visually attractive objects in images/videos. Recently, a growing amount of approaches have been proposed, all of which rely on the contour/edge information to improve detection performance. The edge labels are either put into the loss directly or used as extra supervision. The edge and body can also be learned separately and then fused afterward. Both methods either lead to high prediction errors near the edge or cannot be trained in an end-to-end manner. Another problem is that existing methods may fail to detect objects of various sizes due to the lack of efficient and effective feature fusion mechanisms. In this work, we propose to decompose the saliency detection task into two cascaded sub-tasks, i.e., detail modeling and body filling. Specifically, detail modeling focuses on capturing the object edges by supervision of explicitly decomposed detail label that consists of the pixels that are nested on the edge and near the edge. Then the body filling learns the body part that will be filled into the detail map to generate more accurate saliency map. To effectively fuse the features and handle objects at different scales, we have also proposed two novel multi-scale detail attention and body attention blocks for precise detail and body modeling. Experimental results show that our method achieves state-of-the-art performances on six public datasets.
Effects of Different Dispersants on Chemical Reaction and Material Removal in Ultrasonic Assisted Chemical Mechanical Polishing of Sapphire
Authors: Deng Hongguang , Zhong Min , Xu Wenhu
Published: March 2022

Effects of different dispersing reagents on ultrasonic assisted chemical mechanical polishing (UV-CMP) of sapphire were investigated in this study. Their influences on chemical reaction and mechanical action between silica particles and sapphire surface were explored by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, scanning electron microscope, zeta potential and particle size analyses. The results show that ultrasonic and polyethylene glycol can synergistically promote the chemical reaction and sapphire removal rate. However, sodium polyacrylate and sodium hexametaphosphate will inhibit the chemical reaction. For different concentrations of polyethylene glycol, they affect the chemical reaction and mechanical removal due to the particle aggregation or dispersion in sapphire UV-CMP. When the content is 0.2%, the synergistic effects of chemical and mechanical action between abrasives and sapphire surface are optimal. The sapphire removal rate reaches 48.5 nm min−1 and the polished surface roughness is 0.16 nm.
Quality of Signal Improvement in Prominent CNTFET Based Ternary Logic System for Futuristic Dielectric Inserted MLGNRs for Integrated Circuit Designs
Authors: Deepthi Gurijala , Tatineni Madhavi
Published: March 2022

Booming VLSI technology has graciously facilitated down-scaling dimensions of on-chip devices and interconnects in integrated circuits (ICs) to nano-miniaturized scale. However, at nano-dimensions where added benefits of scaling are constrained by associated highly-dense on-chip nano-interconnect structures, their electro-migration effects and several limiting signal-integrity issues. These cumulatively affect the quality of signal (QoS) at output. Improving output QoS is essential for attaining faithful system performance. The present paper judiciously attempts to address as well as limit this graving issue and is successfully proven by obtained results. Firstly, different structures and their performance of futuristic graphene based multi-layer graphene nano ribbon (MLGNR) interconnect is investigated. These include basic MLGNR and dielectric inserted side contact MLGNR (DS-MLGNR). Secondly, to improve data rates and performance, efficient and novel carbon nanotube field effect transistors (CNTFETs) based ternary logic system is incorporated for the prominent nano-MLGNR interconnects. Thirdly, QoS enhancement of highly potential DS-MLGNR interconnect is proposed using active shielding technique. Finally, is chase to further enrich QoS, adaptive least mean square (LMS) equalization technique is used at the receiver. The proposed work comprising of futuristic novel graphene interconnects with efficient ternary logic system together with adaption of several QoS improvement techniques are magnificent and panacea solution to limiting nano-interconnects in advanced ICs. Several interesting and seminal analyses such as delay, power, power-delay product, crosstalk, eye-diagram are performed that supports the novelty and effectiveness of the proposed work. The vivid performance analyses have been implemented at nano-size 10 nm technology node.
Resource Allocation for OFDM-NOMA Systems under Multiuser Scenarios with Different Speeds
Authors: Wu Pengfei , Xiao Wei , Dong Zhicheng , Cui Jingjing , An Fuhua , Zhou Weixi , Li Xiaoyu , Cai Fangkai
Published: March 2022

In this paper, we consider an OFDM-NOMA (orthogonal frequency division multiplexing-nonorthogonal multiple access) downlink system, which has multiple subcarriers and multiple users at different locations and speeds from the base station. The goal is to maximize energy efficiency (EE), which is the bit rate per unit of energy consumption, while meeting the user’s quality of service and power constraints. Since the optimization problem of joint user subcarrier allocation and power allocation is a mixed-integer nonlinear programming (MINLP) problem, the use of traversal search will produce an unacceptable amount of calculation. It should be noted that the optimization problem includes the variables of user and subcarrier allocation and power allocation coefficient. In order to effectively solve this problem, we divide the problem into two subproblems: the problem of user and subcarrier allocation and the problem of power allocation between users. We use a matching algorithm to solve the problem of user and subcarrier assignment. An iterative algorithm to ensure convergence is proposed to obtain the power budget between subcarriers. Finally, the effective binary search is used to obtain the power allocation among users. The simulation results show that the proposed algorithm has a faster convergence rate. At the same time, as the number of users and subcarriers increases, EE improves significantly. As the user speed increases, the EE gradually decreases; especially when the number of users is larger, the effect is more obvious. Compared with random matching, the proposed algorithm has higher EE under the same number of users, number of subcarriers, and speed.
Centralization and Firm Performance: New Evidence on the Role of Firm Size
Authors: Fan Xiaojun , Chen Chang , Yuan Leping
Published: March 2022

Centralization has been regarded as an important factor in corporate governance in the academic and business communities. Although several studies have examined the relationship between centralization and firm performance, the conclusions remain mixed. We extend existing research by introducing firm size as a threshold variable into our model to explicate the complicated effects of centralization on firm performance. We found that a high degree of centralization can promote firm performance significantly in small- and medium-scale firms while inhibiting firm performance in large-scale firms. Using heterogeneity analysis, we found that centralization has a more significant positive impact on firm performance in private firms, family firms, and manufacturing firms than others. Furthermore, we explored the factors influencing the nexus between centralization and firm performance and found that centralization can improve the level of cost allocation management and technology innovation, driving firm performance but possibly resulting in overinvestment, which is harmful to firm performance. Our research provides guidance for companies to establish a decision-making power allocation that meets their scale-appropriate development needs.
Preschool Education Interactive System Based on Smart Sensor Image Recognition
Authors: Chen Xin , Jin Guowen
Published: March 2022

The purpose of this research is to use the image recognition technology of smart sensors to establish a preschool education system for preschool children, which can realize interactive image-based learning and education for preschool children. This paper uses CMOS image sensor (IV2-6500CA of KEYENCE) to design the front-end image acquisition hardware system and establishes an image recognition system that can realize most of the recognition functions based on BP neural network algorithm and ImageNet, MS COCO, MNIST, and the Chars74K dataset and integrate the image recognition system into the preschool education interactive system. The image recognition system has a high accuracy rate, with an overall accuracy rate of 85.16%. Compared with the traditional preschool education system, it has a higher recognition rate, better teaching efficiency, and interactivity. It can recognize most of the objects that children touch and have a good interactive education effect.
The Efficacy of Anti-Tumor Necrosis Factor Therapy in Cryopyrin-Associated Periodic Syndromes: A Report of Two Cases
Authors: Tahghighi Fatemeh , Vahedi Mahdieh , Parvaneh Nima , Shahrooei Mohammad , Ziaee Vahid
Published: March 2022

Background. Cryopyrin-associated periodic syndromes (CAPSs) are a group of autoinflammatory disorders caused by a mutation in the NLRP3 gene. NLRP3 mutations increase inflammasome activation; therefore, IL-1 targeted therapies are frequently used in the aforementioned disorders. Case Presentation. We report two cases of CAPS in which the diagnosis was confirmed by genetic tests and an evaluation of the therapeutic response to anti-tumor necrosis factor (anti-TNF) agents. Conclusion. IL-1 inhibitors are highly effective in treating CAPS patients. Most patients with severe symptoms such as neurologic involvement improve with IL-1 blockade. Anti-TNF agents might be effective in reducing mild manifestation; however, they are not effective in improving more severe complications.