bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
‘Learn from the lessons and don’t forget them’: identifying transferable lessons for COVID-19 from meningitis A, yellow fever and Ebola virus disease vaccination campaigns
Authors: Collins Julie , Westerveld Rosie , Nelson Kate A , Rohan Hana , Bower Hilary , Lazenby Siobhan , Ikilezi Gloria , Bartlein Rebecca , Bausch Daniel G , Kennedy David S
Published: September 2021

Introduction

COVID-19 vaccines are now being distributed to low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), with global urgency surrounding national vaccination plans. LMICs have significant experience implementing vaccination campaigns to respond to epidemic threats but are often hindered by chronic health system challenges. We sought to identify transferable lessons for COVID-19 vaccination from the rollout of three vaccines that targeted adult groups in Africa and South America: MenAfriVac (meningitis A); 17D (yellow fever) and rVSV-ZEBOV (Ebola virus disease).

Methods

We conducted a rapid literature review and 24 semi-structured interviews with technical experts who had direct implementation experience with the selected vaccines in Africa and South America. We identified barriers, enablers, and key lessons from the literature and from participants’ experiences. Interview data were analysed thematically according to seven implementation domains.

Results

Participants highlighted multiple components of vaccination campaigns that are instrumental for achieving high coverage. Community engagement is an essential and effective tool, requiring dedicated time, funding and workforce. Involving local health workers is a key enabler, as is collaborating with community leaders to map social groups and tailor vaccination strategies to their needs. Vaccination team recruitment and training strategies need to be enhanced to support vaccination campaigns. Although recognised as challenging, integrating vaccination campaigns with other routine health services can be highly beneficial if well planned and coordinated across health programmes and with communities.

Conclusion

As supplies of COVID-19 vaccines become available to LMICs, countries need to prepare to efficiently roll out the vaccine, encourage uptake among eligible groups and respond to potential community concerns. Lessons from the implementation of these three vaccines that targeted adults in LMICs can be used to inform best practice for COVID-19 and other epidemic vaccination campaigns.
Alternative splicing of viral transcripts: the dark side of HBV
Authors: Kremsdorf Dina , Lekbaby Bouchra , Bablon Pierre , Sotty Jules , Augustin Jérémy , Schnuriger Aurélie , Pol Jonathan , Soussan Patrick
Published: September 2021

Regulation of alternative splicing is one of the most efficient mechanisms to enlarge the proteomic diversity in eukaryotic organisms. Many viruses hijack the splicing machinery following infection to accomplish their replication cycle. Regarding the HBV, numerous reports have described alternative splicing events of the long viral transcript (pregenomic RNA), which also acts as a template for viral genome replication. Alternative splicing of HBV pregenomic RNAs allows the synthesis of at least 20 spliced variants. In addition, almost all these spliced forms give rise to defective particles, detected in the blood of infected patients. HBV-spliced RNAs have long been unconsidered, probably due to their uneasy detection in comparison to unspliced forms as well as for their dispensable role during viral replication. However, recent data highlighted the relevance of these HBV-spliced variants through (1) the trans-regulation of the alternative splicing of viral transcripts along the course of liver disease; (2) the ability to generate defective particle formation, putative biomarker of the liver disease progression; (3) modulation of viral replication; and (4) their intrinsic propensity to encode for novel viral proteins involved in liver pathogenesis and immune response. Altogether, tricky regulation of HBV alternative splicing may contribute to modulate multiple viral and cellular processes all along the course of HBV-related liver disease.
Integrating out heavy fields in the path integral using the background-field method: general formalism
Authors: Dittmaier Stefan , Schuhmacher Sebastian , Stahlhofen Maximilian
Published: September 2021

Building on an older method used to derive non-decoupling effects of a heavy Higgs boson in the Standard Model, we describe a general procedure to integrate out heavy fields in the path integral. The derivation of the corresponding effective Lagrangian including the one-loop contributions of the heavy particle(s) is particularly transparent, flexible, and algorithmic. The background-field formalism allows for a clear separation of tree-level and one-loop effects involving the heavy fields. Using expansion by regions the one-loop effects are further split into contributions from large and small momentum modes. The former are contained in Wilson coefficients of effective operators, the latter are reproduced by one-loop diagrams involving effective tree-level couplings. The method is illustrated by calculating potential non-decoupling effects of a heavy Higgs boson in a singlet Higgs extension of the Standard Model. In particular, we work in a field basis corresponding to mass eigenstates and properly take into account non-vanishing mixing between the two Higgs fields of the model. We also show that a proper choice of renormalization scheme for the non-standard sector of the underlying full theory is crucial for the construction of a consistent effective field theory.
Spherically symmetric ’t Hooft–Polyakov monopoles
Authors: Katanaev M. O.
Published: September 2021

A general analytic spherically symmetric solution of the Bogomol’nyi equations is found. It depends on two constants and one arbitrary function on radius and contains the Bogomol’nyi–Prasad–Sommerfield and Singleton solutions as particular cases. Thus all spherically symmetric ’t Hooft–Polyakov monopoles with massless scalar field and minimal energy are derived.
Uniformization of branched surfaces and Higgs bundles
Authors: Biswas Indranil , Bradlow Steven , Dumitrescu Sorin , Heller Sebastian
Published: September 2021

Given a compact connected Riemann surface [Formula: see text] of genus [Formula: see text], and an effective divisor [Formula: see text] on [Formula: see text] with [Formula: see text], there is a unique cone metric on [Formula: see text] of constant negative curvature [Formula: see text] such that the cone angle at each point [Formula: see text] is [Formula: see text] [R. C. McOwen, Point singularities and conformal metrics on Riemann surfaces, Proc. Amer. Math. Soc. 103 (1988) 222–224; M. Troyanov, Prescribing curvature on compact surfaces with conical singularities, Trans. Amer. Math. Soc. 324 (1991) 793–821]. We describe the Higgs bundle on [Formula: see text] corresponding to the uniformization associated to this conical metric. We also give a family of Higgs bundles on [Formula: see text] parametrized by a nonempty open subset of [Formula: see text] that correspond to conical metrics of the above type on moving Riemann surfaces. These are inspired by Hitchin’s results in [N. J. Hitchin, The self-duality equations on a Riemann surface, Proc. London Math. Soc. 55 (1987) 59–126] for the case [Formula: see text].
Biochanin A from Chinese Medicine: An Isoflavone with Diverse Pharmacological Properties
Authors: Yan Jia , Qiu Panda , Zhang Xinyu , Zhang Yuanyuan , Mi Linjing , Peng Cheng , Pan Xiaoqi , Peng Fu
Published: September 2021

Biochanin A (BCA) is a dietary isoflavone, isolated from the leaves and stems of Trifolium pratense L and many other herbs of Chinese medicine. Recent findings indicated BCA as a promising drug candidate with diverse bioactive effects. On the purpose of evaluating the possibility of BCA in clinical application, this review is trying to provide a comprehensive summary of the pharmacological actions of BCA. The publications collected from PubMed, ScienceDirect, and Wiley databases were summarized for the last 10 years. Then, the potential therapeutic use of BCA on the treatment of various diseases was discussed according to its pharmacological properties, namely, anticancer, anti-inflammatory, anti-bacterial, anti-diabetic, and anti-obesity effects as well as neuroprotective, hepatoprotective, cardioprotective, and osteoprotective effects. BCA might mainly regulate the MAPK, PI3K, NRF2, and NF-kB pathways, respectively, to exert its bioactive effects. However, the limited definitive targets, poor biological availability, and insufficient safety evaluation might block the clinical application of BCA. This review may provide new insights for the development of BCA in the application of related diseases.
A TUTORIAL INTRODUCTION TO THE TWO-SCALE FRACTAL CALCULUS AND ITS APPLICATION TO THE FRACTAL ZHIBER–SHABAT OSCILLATOR
Authors: HE JI-HUAN , EL-DIB YUSRY O.
Published: September 2021

In this paper, a tutorial introduction to the two-scale fractal calculus is given. The two-scale fractal derivative is conformable with the traditional differential derivatives. When the fractal dimensions tend to an integer value, its basic properties are discussed, and the fractal Zhiber–Shabat oscillator is used as an example to reveal the basic properties of a fractal differential equation. The two-scale transform is used to convert the nonlinear Zhiber–Shabat oscillator with the fractal derivatives to the traditional model. The homotopy perturbation method has been demonstrated under a suitable transformation of the system containing several exponential nonlinear terms to the famous Helmholtz–Duffing oscillator. Stability behavior is discussed. Several numerical illustrations are also provided to exhibit the integrity of the introduced formulation. It is demonstrated that the proposed formulation is accurate enough for highly nonlinear differential equations containing large nonlinear terms.
INVESTIGATION OF WIPER INSERTS EFFECTS IN TURNING AND MILLING PROCESSES
Authors: KIYAK MURAT
Published: September 2021

The surface roughness is a crucial factor in machining methods. The most effective factors on surface roughness are feed rate and tool nose radius. Due to the many advantages of wiper (multi-nose radius) inserts, their importance and use has been increasing recently. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effect of wiper inserts on surface roughness and tool wear. In this study, conventional inserts and wiper inserts were experimentally compared separately in milling and turning operations. Compared to conventional inserts, the surface roughness values obtained using wiper inserts improved by 33% in turning operations and approximately 40% in milling operations. It was observed that the production time in the turning process was reduced by about 25% in the case of using wiper inserts compared to the use of conventional inserts. In milling, this ratio was determined to be approximately 43% due to the fact that it has multiple cutting edge. It has been observed that the use of wiper inserts in machining methods creates a significant time and cost saving advantage.
Speech Delivered for the Acceptance of an Honorary Ph.D. Degree in Economics at National Tsing Hua University
Authors: Perng Fai-nan
Published: September 2021

This is a speech that Dr. Fai-nan Perng delivered for the acceptance of an honorary Ph.D. degree in economics at National Tsing Hua University, Taiwan. Dr. Fai-nan Perng was appointed as the Governor of the Central Bank of the R.O.C. (Taiwan) by President Teng-hui Lee in February 1998. He served in this position for 20 years. During this 20-year period, he faced the 1998 Asian financial crisis, terrorist attack on the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, and the 2008 U.S. financial crisis. He handled monetary policy smoothly and led the economic growth in Taiwan very well. Overall, he is one of the longest-serving and most well-known governors in the world. He represented Taiwan in the 2000 APEC Economic Leaders’ Meeting, was The Banker Magazine’s 2009 Central Banker of the Year, Asia, and received Central Banking Publications’ Lifetime Achievement Award in 2018. He also served as the associate editor for the Review of Pacific Basin Financial Markets and Policies (RPBFMP) from 2005 to 2018.
RATCHETING EVALUATION OF BIOLOGICAL TISSUES OVER ASYMMETRIC LOADING CYCLES
Authors: HASHEMI M. S. , VARVANI-FARAHANI A.
Published: September 2021

This study intends to evaluate the ratcheting response of biological samples prepared from bovine and porcine trabecular bone, articular cartilage, meniscus, and skin tissues and tested under asymmetric (nonzero mean stress) cycles. Meniscus and skin samples were tested with stress ratios of [Formula: see text] and [Formula: see text], respectively, while other tissues were tested at [Formula: see text]. Experimental ratcheting data and related influential parameters including stress level, stress rate, and testing frequency were discussed. A parametric ratcheting equation was further calibrated to estimate the ratcheting response of tissues. The predicted ratcheting data were found to be in close agreement with the reported experimental data.
COMPARISON OF TWO THICK SHELL MODELS PERFORMANCE IN NONINVASIVE EVALUATION OF MYOCARDIAL WALL STRESS
Authors: KHOSRAVANIPOUR MOHAMMAD JAVAD , MOKHTARI-DIZAJI MANIJHE , FARHAN FARSHID , SATTARZADEH-BADKOUBEH ROYA
Published: September 2021

Coronary artery stenosis is the most common heart disease, leading to altered myocardial mechanics. This study aimed to compare Ghista–Sandler and Mirsky wall stress models and evaluate the discriminant analysis of noninvasive wall stress based on these models. 59 Coronary artery disease (CAD) patients were divided into two groups; moderate stenosis and severe stenosis in the left anterior descending artery proximal part were enrolled in this study. The wall stress in the end-systolic and end-diastolic phases at LV anterior and interventricular septum wall segments calculated by using the equation proposed by Ghista–Sandler and Mirsky. The specificity and sensitivity of wall stress at groups were calculated by Ghista–Sandler and Mirsky models. The wall thickness and principal radius of segments in healthy subjects and patients with severe and moderate stenosis were shown statistically differences in some segments of anterior and septum walls ([Formula: see text]). Statistical analysis showed that calculated stresses in myocardial wall segments of patients with severe and moderate coronary stenosis and healthy people had a significant difference in systole and diastolic phase. Results of the discriminant analysis showed the specificity value obtained by the Ghista–Sandler model were higher in most wall stress combinations than the Mirsky model. Sensitivity in identifying patients with severe stenosis was higher in the Ghista–Sandler model. It is concluded that specificity and sensitivity based on wall stresses calculated by the Ghista–Sandler model were higher in comparison with the Mirsky model. The Ghista–Sandler model has better performance than the Mirsky model in diagnosing patients with stenosis.
Related-Party Transactions and Stock Price Crash Risk: Evidence from China
Authors: Habib Ahsan , Jiang Haiyan , Zhou Donghua
Published: September 2021

This paper investigates the association between related-party transactions (RPTs) and stock price crash risk in China. Our investigation is motivated by the controversy in the RPT literature over whether RPTs are value enhancing or opportunistic. Through the lens of stock price crash risk, we reveal that RPTs may violate the arm’s-length assumption of regular market-based transactions, impairing the representational faithfulness and verifiability of accounting data and, consequently, increasing the risk of future price crash. Importantly, we find that this detrimental economic consequence of RPTs is driven by abnormal RPTs that are opportunistic in nature. Our analyses also extend to operating RPTs, related-party loans, and two types of opportunistic RPTs: tunneling and propping. The positive association between RPTs and stock price crash risk is not mediated by financial reporting quality, suggesting that the risk factors associated with RPTs are operational. Our main results remain robust to a series of tests done to address the potential endogeneity between RPTs and stock price crash risk.
Glycerol effects on optical, weight and geometrical properties of skin tissue
Authors: Genin Vadim D. , Genina Elina A. , Tuchin Valery V. , Bashkatov Alexey N.
Published: September 2021

Complex study of glycerol effects on the skin tissue was performed. The change in optical, weight and geometrical parameters of the rat skin under the action of the glycerol solutions was studied ex vivo. Possible mechanisms of the skin optical clearing under the action of glycerol solutions of different concentrations were discussed. The results can be helpful for refinement of models developed to evaluate the effective diffusion coefficients of glycerol in tissues.
Numerical model for evaluating the speckle activity and characteristics of bone tissue under the biospeckle laser system
Authors: Tang Xin , Zhong Ping , Gao Yinrui , Hu Haowei
Published: September 2021

This paper discusses and studies the composition and characteristics of biospeckle on the surface of bone tissues. We used a laser speckle device to capture biospeckle patterns from fresh pig bone tissue. Traditional speckle activity metrics were used to measure the speckle activity of ex vivo bone tissue over time. Both Gaussian and Lorentzian correlation functions were used to characterize the ordered and disordered motion of the bone surface, together with volume scattering, to construct the model. Using the established mathematical model of the spatio-temporal evolution of the biospeckle pattern, it is possible to account for the presence of volume scattering from the biospeckle of bones, quantify the ordered or disordered motions in the biological speckle activity at the current time, and assess the ability of laser speckle correlation technique to determine biological activity.
FAST RRT* 3D-Sliced Planner for Autonomous Exploration Using MAVs
Authors: Martínez Novo Á. , Lu Liang , Campoy Pascual
Published: September 2021

This paper addresses the challenge to build an autonomous exploration system using Micro-Aerial Vehicles (MAVs). MAVs are capable of flying autonomously, generating collision-free paths to navigate in unknown areas and also reconstructing the environment at which they are deployed. One of the contributions of our system is the “3D-Sliced Planner” for exploration. The main innovation is the low computational resources needed. This is because Optimal-Frontier-Points (OFP) to explore are computed in 2D slices of the 3D environment using a global Rapidly-exploring Random Tree (RRT) frontier detector. Then, the MAV can plan path routes to these points to explore the surroundings with our new proposed local “FAST RRT* Planner” that uses a tree reconnection algorithm based on cost, and a collision checking algorithm based on Signed Distance Field (SDF). The results show the proposed explorer takes 43.95% less time to compute exploration points and paths when compared with the State-of-the-Art represented by the Receding Horizon Next Best View Planner (RH-NBVP) in Gazebo simulations.
Towards Disentangling Lockdown-Driven Air Quality Changes in the Northeastern U.S.
Authors: Braneon Christian , Field Robert , Seto Edmund , Chen Kai , McConnell Kathryn , Robinson Lorrin , Richardson Safiya
Published: September 2021

In the absence of preventive therapies or effective treatment for most cases of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), governments worldwide have sought to minimize person-to-person severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) transmission through a variety of lock-down measures and social distancing policies. Extreme events like the COVID-19 pandemic present a tremendous opportunity to make quantitative connections between changes in anthropogenic forcing, social and economic activity, and the related Earth system response. In this paper, we examine the air quality impacts associated with the pandemic response measures in the Northeastern United States.
Semantic Information Retrieval on Medical Texts
Authors: Tamine Lynda , Goeuriot Lorraine
Published: September 2021

The explosive growth and widespread accessibility of medical information on the Internet have led to a surge of research activity in a wide range of scientific communities including health informatics and information retrieval (IR). One of the common concerns of this research, across these disciplines, is how to design either clinical decision support systems or medical search engines capable of providing adequate support for both novices (e.g., patients and their next-of-kin) and experts (e.g., physicians, clinicians) tackling complex tasks (e.g., search for diagnosis, search for a treatment). However, despite the significant multi-disciplinary research advances, current medical search systems exhibit low levels of performance. This survey provides an overview of the state of the art in the disciplines of IR and health informatics, and bridging these disciplines shows how semantic search techniques can facilitate medical IR. First,we will give a broad picture of semantic search and medical IR and then highlight the major scientific challenges. Second, focusing on the semantic gap challenge, we will discuss representative state-of-the-art work related to feature-based as well as semantic-based representation and matching models that support medical search systems. In addition to seminal works, we will present recent works that rely on research advancements in deep learning. Third, we make a thorough cross-model analysis and provide some findings and lessons learned. Finally, we discuss some open issues and possible promising directions for future research trends.
CICERO: A Domain-Specific Architecture for Efficient Regular Expression Matching
Authors: Parravicini Daniele , Conficconi Davide , Sozzo Emanuele Del , Pilato Christian , Santambrogio Marco D.
Published: September 2021

Regular Expression (RE) matching is a computational kernel used in several applications. Since RE complexity and data volumes are steadily increasing, hardware acceleration is gaining attention also for this problem. Existing approaches have limited flexibility as they require a different implementation for each RE. On the other hand, it is complex to map efficient RE representations like non-deterministic finite-state automata onto software-programmable engines or parallel architectures. In this work, we present CICERO , an end-to-end framework composed of a domain-specific architecture and a companion compilation framework for RE matching. Our solution is suitable for many applications, such as genomics/proteomics and natural language processing. CICERO aims at exploiting the intrinsic parallelism of non-deterministic representations of the REs. CICERO can trade-off accelerators’ efficiency and processors’ flexibility thanks to its programmable architecture and the compilation framework. We implemented CICERO prototypes on embedded FPGA achieving up to 28.6× and 20.8× more energy efficiency than embedded and mainstream processors, respectively. Since it is a programmable architecture, it can be implemented as a custom ASIC that is orders of magnitude more energy-efficient than mainstream processors.
Learning to Train CNNs on Faulty ReRAM-based Manycore Accelerators
Authors: Joardar Biresh Kumar , Doppa Janardhan Rao , Li Hai , Chakrabarty Krishnendu , Pande Partha Pratim
Published: September 2021

The growing popularity of convolutional neural networks (CNNs) has led to the search for efficient computational platforms to accelerate CNN training. Resistive random-access memory (ReRAM)-based manycore architectures offer a promising alternative to commonly used GPU-based platforms for training CNNs. However, due to the immature fabrication process and limited write endurance, ReRAMs suffer from different types of faults. This makes training of CNNs challenging as weights are misrepresented when they are mapped to faulty ReRAM cells. This results in unstable training, leading to unacceptably low accuracy for the trained model. Due to the distributed nature of the mapping of the individual bits of a weight to different ReRAM cells, faulty weights often lead to exploding gradients. This in turn introduces a positive feedback in the training loop, resulting in extremely large and unstable weights. In this paper, we propose a lightweight and reliable CNN training methodology using weight clipping to prevent this phenomenon and enable training even in the presence of many faults. Weight clipping prevents large weights from destabilizing CNN training and provides the backpropagation algorithm with the opportunity to compensate for the weights mapped to faulty cells. The proposed methodology achieves near-GPU accuracy without introducing significant area or performance overheads. Experimental evaluation indicates that weight clipping enables the successful training of CNNs in the presence of faults, while also reducing training time by 4
X
on average compared to a conventional GPU platform. Moreover, we also demonstrate that weight clipping outperforms a recently proposed error correction code (ECC)-based method when training is carried out using faulty ReRAMs.
Domain-specific Hybrid Mapping for Energy-efficient Baseband Processing in Wireless Networks
Authors: Khasanov Robert , Robledo Julian , Menard Christian , Goens Andrés , Castrillon Jeronimo
Published: September 2021

Advancing telecommunication standards continuously push for larger bandwidths, lower latencies, and faster data rates. The receiver baseband unit not only has to deal with a huge number of users expecting connectivity but also with a high workload heterogeneity. As a consequence of the required flexibility, baseband processing has seen a trend towards software implementations in cloud Radio Access Networks (cRANs). The flexibility gained from software implementation comes at the price of impoverished energy efficiency. This paper addresses the trade-off between flexibility and efficiency by proposing a
domain-specific
hybrid mapping algorithm. Hybrid mapping is an established approach from the model-based design of embedded systems that allows us to retain flexibility while targeting heterogeneous hardware. Depending on the current workload, the runtime system selects the most energy-efficient mapping configuration without violating timing constraints. We leverage the structure of baseband processing, and refine the scheduling methodology, to enable efficient mapping of 100s of tasks at the millisecond granularity, improving upon state-of-the-art hybrid approaches. We validate our approach on an Odroid XU4 and virtual platforms with application-specific accelerators on an open-source prototype. On different LTE workloads, our hybrid approach shows significant improvements both at design time and at runtime. At design-time, mappings of similar quality to those obtained by state-of-the-art methods are generated around four orders of magnitude faster. At runtime, multi-application schedules are computed 37.7% faster than the state-of-the-art without compromising on the quality.
FLASH:

F

ast Neura

l

A

rchitecture

S

earch with

H

ardware Optimization
Authors: Li Guihong , Mandal Sumit K. , Ogras Umit Y. , Marculescu Radu
Published: September 2021

Neural architecture search (NAS) is a promising technique to design efficient and high-performance deep neural networks (DNNs). As the performance requirements of ML applications grow continuously, the hardware accelerators start playing a central role in DNN design. This trend makes NAS even more complicated and time-consuming for most real applications. This paper proposes FLASH, a very fast NAS methodology that co-optimizes the DNN accuracy and performance on a real hardware platform. As the main theoretical contribution, we first propose the NN-Degree, an analytical metric to quantify the topological characteristics of DNNs with skip connections (e.g., DenseNets, ResNets, Wide-ResNets, and MobileNets). The newly proposed NN-Degree allows us to do
training-free
NAS within one second and build an accuracy predictor by training as few as 25 samples out of a vast search space with more than 63 billion configurations. Second, by performing inference on the target hardware, we fine-tune and validate our analytical models to estimate the latency, area, and energy consumption of various DNN architectures while executing standard ML datasets. Third, we construct a hierarchical algorithm based on simplicial homology global optimization (SHGO) to optimize the model-architecture co-design process, while considering the area, latency, and energy consumption of the target hardware. We demonstrate that, compared to the state-of-the-art NAS approaches, our proposed hierarchical SHGO-based algorithm enables more than four orders of magnitude speedup (specifically, the execution time of the proposed algorithm is about 0.1 seconds). Finally, our experimental evaluations show that FLASH is easily transferable to different hardware architectures, thus enabling us to do NAS on a Raspberry Pi-3B processor in less than 3 seconds.
You Only Traverse Twice: A YOTT Placement, Routing, and Timing Approach for CGRAs
Authors: Canesche Michael , Carvalho Westerley , Reis Lucas , Oliveira Matheus , Magalhães Salles , Jamieson Peter , Nacif Jaugusto M. , Ferreira Ricardo
Published: September 2021

Coarse-grained reconfigurable architecture (CGRA) mapping involves three main steps: placement, routing, and timing. The mapping is an NP-complete problem, and a common strategy is to decouple this process into its independent steps. This work focuses on the placement step, and its aim is to propose a technique that is both reasonably fast and leads to high-performance solutions. Furthermore, a near-optimal placement simplifies the following routing and timing steps. Exact solutions cannot find placements in a reasonable execution time as input designs increase in size. Heuristic solutions include meta-heuristics, such as Simulated Annealing (SA) and fast and straightforward greedy heuristics based on graph traversal. However, as these approaches are probabilistic and have a large design space, it is not easy to provide both run-time efficiency and good solution quality. We propose a graph traversal heuristic that provides the best of both: high-quality placements similar to SA and the execution time of graph traversal approaches. Our placement introduces novel ideas based on “you only traverse twice” (YOTT) approach that performs a two-step graph traversal. The first traversal generates annotated data to guide the second step, which greedily performs the placement, node per node, aided by the annotated data and target architecture constraints. We introduce three new concepts to implement this technique: I/O and reconvergence annotation, degree matching, and look-ahead placement. Our analysis of this approach explores the placement execution time/quality trade-offs. We point out insights on how to analyze graph properties during dataflow mapping. Our results show that YOTT is 60.6

, 9.7

, and 2.3

faster than a high-quality SA, bounding box SA VPR, and multi-single traversal placements, respectively. Furthermore, YOTT reduces the average wire length and the maximal FIFO size (additional timing requirement on CGRAs) to avoid delay mismatches in fully pipelined architectures.
Young Children's Interactions with Objects: Play as Practice and Practice as Play
Authors: Lockman Jeffrey J. , Tamis-LeMonda Catherine S.
Published: September 2021

Objects permeate human culture and saturate the imagination. This duality offers both opportunity and challenge. Here we ask how young human children learn to exploit the immense potential afforded by objects that can exist simultaneously in physical and imaginary realms. To this end, we advance a new framework that integrates the presently siloed literatures on manual skill and play development. We argue that developments in children's real and imagined use of objects are embodied, reciprocal, and intertwined. Advances in one plane of action influence and scaffold advances in the other. Consistent with this unified framework, we show how real and imagined interactions with objects are characterized by developmental parallels in how children ( a) transcend the present to encompass future points in time and space, ( b) extend beyond the self, and ( c) gradually move beyond objects’ designed functions. In addition, we highlight bidirectional influences in children's real and imagined interactions with objects: Play engenders practice and skill in using objects, but just the same, practice using objects engenders advances in play. We close by highlighting the theoretical, empirical, and translational implications of this embodied and integrated account of manual skill and play development.
The Effect of Proton and Arsenic Concentration on As(III) Removal by Hematite and Kaolin Complexes
Authors: Lan Shuai , Zhou Siyu , Zhang Qin , Li Yang , Yan Yupeng , Liang Feng , Jiang Guanjie , Qin Zhangjie
Published: September 2021

With the intensification of human activities, arsenite (As(III)) pollutant from the soil and ground water has been a threat to human health, and the problem gradually becomes the focus of attention. In this study, the effects of several environment factors on As(III) removal ability of complex minerals are determined through the analysis of mineralogical characteristics of the complex synthesis of hematite and kaolin, using X-ray diffraction, Fourier transform infrared, and specific surface area. In the results, the XRD patterns of hematite and kaolin complexes indicate that the loading covers up some characteristic peaks of minerals in kaolin, which can be that hematite loading decrease the order of structure for some minerals. With increasing Fe content, the hydroxyl sites gradually increase, therefore strengthening the As(III) removal ability of complexes. With increasing the As(III) concentration, the removal ratios of kaolin on As(III) almost keep unchanged and that of complexes show no obvious regularity. However, with the pH increasing, the removal ratios of all samples keep increasing. Furthermore, the increasing of As(III) concentration and pH both improve As(III) removal amount significantly, especially for As(III) concentration. In addition, there is no forming of new mineral through it as observed by XRD. Therefore, hematite loading can promote the As(III) removal on kaolin through adsorption in different environments, which can provide a better method for the remediation of arsenic pollution.
Analysis of the Most-Cited Systematic Review or Meta-Analysis in Acupuncture Research
Authors: He Ying , Li Yuxi , Li Juan , Li Ning , Zhang Yonggang , Li Nian
Published: September 2021

Objectives. The aim of the current study was to analyze the 100 most-cited systematic reviews or meta-analyses in the field of acupuncture research. Methods. The Web of Science Core Collection was used to retrieve lists of 100 most-cited systematic reviews or meta-analyses in the field of acupuncture research. Two authors screened literature, extracted data, and analyzed the results. Results. The citation number of the 100 most-cited systematic reviews or meta-analyses varied from 65 to 577; they were published between 1989 and 2018. Fourteen authors published more than 1 study as the corresponding author and 10 authors published more than 1 study as the first author. In terms of the corresponding authors, Edzard Ernst and Linde Klaus published the most systematic reviews/meta-analyses (n = 7). The USA published most of the systematic reviews or meta-analyses (n = 24), followed by England (n = 23) and China (n = 14). Most institutions with more than 1 study were from England (4/13). The institutions with the largest numbers of most-cited systematic reviews or meta-analyses were the Technical University of Munich in Germany, the University of Maryland School of Medicine in the USA (n = 8), the Universities of Exeter and Plymouth in England (n = 6), and the University of Exeter in England (n = 6). The journal with the largest number of most-cited systematic reviews or meta-analyses was the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews (n = 20), followed by Pain (n = 6). Conclusion. Our study reveals that the 100 most-cited systematic reviews or meta-analyses in the acupuncture research field are mostly from high impact factor journals and developed countries. It will help researchers follow research hot spots, broaden their research scope, expand their academic horizons, and explore new research ideas, thereby improving the quality of acupuncture research.
Statistical Analysis for Food Quality in the Presence of Vague Information
Authors: Al-Marshadi Ali Hussein , Aslam Muhammad
Published: September 2021

The present study introduces the neutrosophic statistical test to see investigate the difference between variances of two populations when correlation exits in pair observations. The procedure and statistic of the proposed test under neutrosophic statistics are introduced in the paper. The application of the proposed test is given using the food industry data. The efficiency of the proposed test is compared with that of the existing test in terms of the measure of indeterminacy, flexibility, and information. From the real application and comparative studies, it is concluded that the proposed test is quite reasonable to apply in uncertainty.
Study on Synthesis and Service Properties of Anticoagulant Ice Microcapsule Coating Material
Authors: Chang Rong , Wang Jie , Qin Yongchun , Xu Jian , Zeng Wei , Zhang Yange , Wang Peng
Published: September 2021

The presence of ice and snow on a road surface in winter will reduce the traffic capacity of the road network, which can easily lead to traffic accidents. In this study, nonchlorine organic snow‐melting salt was added to emulsified asphalt to prepare an anticoagulant ice fog seal. Considering the destructive effect of snow‐melting salt on the stability of emulsified asphalt, polyvinyl alcohol was used as an encapsulation material to form a stable two‐phase system by mixing snow‐melting salt with emulsified asphalt. The zeta potential method was used to test the storage stability of the encapsulated salt solution. The results showed that the material and content of the encapsulation had a significant effect on the stability of the emulsified asphalt and the reduction in the freezing point of the encapsulated salt solution. PVA (1.5%) mixed with 24% sodium acetate was used to prepare an encapsulated salt emulsion, which was mixed with anionic emulsified asphalt and sprayed on the road surface. This significantly reduced the freezing point of road surface water. The recommended spraying dosage of the anticoagulant ice fog seal layer was 0.4 kg/m2, which could lower the freezing point by at least −8°C while simultaneously meeting the antislip performance condition. This was shown to be a preventive maintenance technology with both anticoagulant ice and maintenance effects.
Analytical Investigation of Magnetohydrodynamic Non‐Newtonian Type Casson Nanofluid Flow past a Porous Channel with Periodic Body Acceleration
Authors: Thamaraikannan N. , Karthikeyan S. , Chaudhary Dinesh Kumar , Kayikci Safak
Published: September 2021

The consequence of periodic body acceleration and thermal radiation in the pulsating flow of MHD Casson nanofluid through a porous channel is addressed. A flow of the nanofluid injected through the lower plate is considered while sucked out through the upper plate with a similar velocity. The thermal radiation term is incorporated in the heat transfer equation. The governing equations corresponding to velocity and temperature are converted from partial differential equations to a system of ordinary differential equations by employing similarity variables. The perturbation technique is applied to solve the governing flow equations. The impact of diverse parameters on flow features is graphically analyzed. The result reveals that adding the nanoparticle has enhanced the velocity profile of the base fluid. Moreover, an increase in the periodic body acceleration results in enlarging velocity and temperature.
Agility Factors’ Analyses Framework in Project‐Oriented Organizations through a Sustainability Approach in Large Projects Case Study: Isfahan Municipality
Authors: Tahanian Ahmadreza , Haleh Hasan , Etebari Farhad , Vahdani Behnam
Published: September 2021

In recent years, the project management concept is coupled with sustainable development. In terms of profitability and adapting to environmental changes, generating value for the customer and responding to market needs is a challenging issue. To gain profit and success, a project should adhere to agility factors. With respect to the importance of project execution success, corresponding to the sustainability dimensions and by developing agility parameters, this study provides a framework for clustering and analyzing “large projects” based on agility factors in project‐oriented organizations through a sustainability approach and by applying Quality Function Deployment. To this end, critical factors of project success and then agility factors of the project‐oriented organizations have been identified. Thereafter, the importance of these two major components has been measured by executive managers in Isfahan Municipality and academic experts. Afterward, the agility factors’ weights have been calculated based on extracted sustainability factors’ weights, which have been gained according to the project’s critical success factors and by applying quality function deployment. By determining the agility factors’ clusters in the project‐oriented organizations and calculating their importance weights, the first cluster that contains project communication management, organizational culture, and contracts management gains the maximum weight of importance.
Stable Long-Term Culture of Human Distal Airway Stem Cells for Transplantation
Authors: Zhou Yueqing , Wang Yujia , Li Dandan , Zhang Ting , Ma Yu , Zuo Wei
Published: September 2021

There is a population of p63+/Krt5+ distal airway stem cells (DASCs) quiescently located in the airway basal epithelium of mammals, responding to injury and airway epithelial regeneration. They hold the ability to differentiate into multiple pulmonary cell types and can repopulate the epithelium after damage. The current study aims at gaining further insights into the behavior and characteristics of the DASCs isolated from the patient lung and exploring their clinical translational potential. Human DASCs were brushed off through the bronchoscopic procedure and expanded under the pharmaceutical-grade condition. Their phenotype stability in long-term cell culture was analyzed, followed by safety evaluation and tumorigenic analysis using multiple animal models including rodents and nonhuman primate. The chimerism of the human-mouse lung model indicated that DASC pedigrees could give rise to multiple epithelial types, including type I alveolar cells as well as bronchiolar secretory cells, to regenerate the distal lung. Taken together, the results suggested that DASC transplantation could be a promising therapeutic approach for unmet needs in respiratory medicine including the COVID-19-related diseases.
Body Mass Index Showed No Impact on the Outcome of In Vitro Fertilization in Progestin-Primed Ovarian Stimulation Protocol
Authors: Yang Zhe , Zhao Xuehan , Hu Xue , Ou Xiangyang , Yin Tailang , Yang Jing , Wu Gengxiang
Published: September 2021

Purpose. To assess whether body mass index (BMI) affects the outcome of in vitro fertilization (IVF) in progestin-primed ovarian stimulation (PPOS) protocol. Methods. A retrospective study was conducted in the Reproductive Medicine Center, Renmin Hospital of Wuhan University, from June 2016 to June 2017. 636 infertile women who received PPOS protocol in IVF treatment were divided into three groups according to BMI. The data of basic characteristics, embryological outcomes, and cycle characteristics of controlled ovarian stimulation of different groups were collected and studied. Result(s). There was no significant difference in almost all the basic characteristics, embryological outcomes of controlled ovarian stimulation, and cycle characteristics of controlled ovarian stimulation among the three groups. There was a tendency that the duration of infertility was decreased with the increase of patients’ weight, although there was no significant difference (

P
=
0.051

). However, overweight patients had a higher fertilization rate than normal weight patients and underweight patients (70.3 vs. 67.7 vs. 66.8,

P
=
0.008

), but two-pronuclei (2PN) fertilization rate and cleavage rate showed no significant difference among the three groups. Conclusion(s). BMI showed no impact on the outcome of the ovarian stimulation outcome in PPOS protocol. PPOS protocol may benefit overweight patients, for it attains the same effect with normal patients and requires no increase in gonadotropin (Gn) dose and Gn duration.
Diverse Oncogenic Fusions and Distinct Gene Expression Patterns Define the Genomic Landscape of Pediatric Papillary Thyroid Carcinoma
Authors: Stosic Ana , Fuligni Fabio , Anderson Nathaniel D. , Davidson Scott , de Borja Richard , Acker Meryl , Forte Vito , Campisi Paolo , Propst Evan J. , Wolter Nikolaus E. , Chami Rose , Mete Ozgur , Malkin David , Shlien Adam , Wasserman Jonathan D.
Published: September 2021

Pediatric papillary thyroid carcinoma (PPTC) is clinically distinct from adult-onset disease. Although there are higher rates of metastasis and recurrence in PPTC, prognosis remains highly favorable. Molecular characterization of PPTC has been lacking. Historically, only 40% to 50% of childhood papillary thyroid carcinoma (PTC) were known to be driven by genomic variants common to adult PTC; oncogenic drivers in the remainder were unknown. This contrasts with approximately 90% of adult PTC driven by a discrete number of variants. In this study, 52 PPTCs underwent candidate gene testing, followed in a subset by whole-exome and transcriptome sequencing. Within these samples, candidate gene testing identified variants in 31 (60%) tumors, while exome and transcriptome sequencing identified oncogenic variants in 19 of 21 (90%) remaining tumors. The latter were enriched for oncogenic fusions, with 11 nonrecurrent fusion transcripts, including two previously undescribed fusions, STRN-RET and TG-PBF. Most fusions were associated with 3′ receptor tyrosine kinase (RTK) moieties: RET, MET, ALK, and NTRK3. For advanced (distally metastatic) tumors, a driver variant was described in 91%. Gene expression analysis defined three clusters that demonstrated distinct expression of genes involved in thyroid differentiation and MAPK signaling. Among RET-CCDC6–driven tumors, gene expression in pediatric tumors was distinguishable from that in adults. Collectively, these results show that the genomic landscape of pediatric PTC is different from adult PTC. Moreover, they identify genomic drivers in 98% of PPTCs, predominantly oncogenic fusion transcripts involving RTKs, with a pronounced impact on gene expression. Notably, most advanced tumors were driven by a variant for which targeted systemic therapy exists.

Significance:

This study highlights important distinctions between the genomes and transcriptomes of pediatric and adult papillary thyroid carcinoma, with implications for understanding the biology, diagnosis, and treatment of advanced disease in children.