bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Cardiotoxicities of novel cancer immunotherapies
Authors: Stein-Merlob Ashley F , Rothberg Michael V , Ribas Antoni , Yang Eric H
Published: March 2021

Immunotherapy revolutionised oncology by harnessing the native immune system to effectively treat a wide variety of malignancies even at advanced stages. Off-target immune activation leads to immune-related adverse events affecting multiple organ systems, including the cardiovascular system. In this review, we discuss the current literature describing the epidemiology, mechanisms and proposed management of cardiotoxicities related to immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs), chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapies and bispecific T-cell engagers. ICIs are monoclonal antibody antagonists that block a co-inhibitory pathway used by tumour cells to evade a T cell-mediated immune response. ICI-associated cardiotoxicities include myocarditis, pericarditis, atherosclerosis, arrhythmias and vasculitis. ICI-associated myocarditis is the most recognised and potentially fatal cardiotoxicity with mortality approaching 50%. Recently, ICI-associated dysregulation of the atherosclerotic plaque immune response with prolonged use has been linked to early progression of atherosclerosis and myocardial infarction. Treatment strategies include immunosuppression with corticosteroids and supportive care. In CAR T-cell therapy, autologous T cells are genetically engineered to express receptors targeted to cancer cells. While stimulating an effective tumour response, they also elicit a profound immune reaction called cytokine release syndrome (CRS). High-grade CRS causes significant systemic abnormalities, including cardiovascular effects such as arrhythmias, haemodynamic compromise and cardiomyopathy. Treatment with interleukin-6 inhibitors and corticosteroids is associated with improved outcomes. The evidence shows that, although uncommon, immunotherapy-related cardiovascular toxicities confer significant risk of morbidity and mortality and benefit from rapid immunosuppressive treatment. As new immunotherapies are developed and adopted, it will be imperative to closely monitor for cardiotoxicity.
Decade of progress in motor functional neurological disorder: continuing the momentum
Authors: Perez David L , Edwards Mark J , Nielsen Glenn , Kozlowska Kasia , Hallett Mark , LaFrance, Jr W Curt
Published: March 2021

Functional neurological disorder (FND) is a prevalent, disabling and costly condition at the neurology–psychiatry intersection. After being marginalised in the late 20th century, there has been renewed interest in this field. In this article, we review advances that have occurred over the past decade (2011–2020) across diagnosis, mechanisms, aetiologies, treatments and stigma in patients with motor FND (mFND, that is, functional movement disorder and functional limb weakness). In each content area, we also discuss the implications of recent advances and suggest future directions that will help continue the momentum of the past decade. In diagnosis, a major advance has been the emphasis on rule-in physical signs that are specific for hyperkinetic and hypokinetic functional motor symptoms. Mechanistically, greater importance has been given to determining ‘how’ functional neurological symptoms develop, highlighting roles for misdirected attention, expectation and self-agency, as well as abnormal influences of emotion/threat processing brain areas on motor control circuits. Aetiologically, while roles for adverse life experiences remain of interest in mFND, there is recognition of other aetiologic contributors, and efforts are needed to investigate links between aetiological factors and mechanisms. This decade has seen the first randomised controlled trials for physiotherapy, multidisciplinary rehabilitation and psychotherapy performed in the field, with consensus recommendations for physiotherapy, occupational therapy and outcome measures also published. Across patients, clinicians, healthcare systems and society, stigma remains a major concern. While challenges persist, a patient-centred integrated clinical neuroscience approach is primed to carry forward the momentum of the past decade into the future.
Represent me: please! Towards an ethics of digital twins in medicine
Authors: Braun Matthias
Published: March 2021

Simulations are used in very different contexts and for very different purposes. An emerging development is the possibility of using simulations to obtain a more or less representative reproduction of organs or even entire persons. Such simulations are framed and discussed using the term ‘digital twin’. This paper unpacks and scrutinises the current use of such digital twins in medicine and the ideas embedded in this practice. First, the paper maps the different types of digital twins. A special focus is put on the concrete challenges inherent in the interactions between persons and their digital twin. Second, the paper addresses the questions of how far a digital twin can represent a person and what the consequences of this may be. Against the background of these two analytical steps, the paper defines first conditions for digital twins to take on an ethically justifiable form of representation.
The complex case of Ellie Anderson
Authors: Räsänen Joona , Smajdor Anna
Published: March 2021

Ellie Anderson had always known that she wanted to have children. Her mother, Louise, was aware of this wish. Ellie was designated male at birth, but according to news sources, identified as a girl from the age of three. She was hoping to undergo gender reassignment surgery at 18, but died unexpectedly at only 16, leaving Louise grappling not only with the grief of losing her daughter, but with a complex legal problem. Ellie had had her sperm frozen before starting hormone treatment, specifically so that she would retain the chance of becoming a parent after her gender reassignment. Ellie had considered what might happen to the sperm if she died and was adamant that her children should be brought into the world. She made her mother promise to ensure that this would happen. But according to UK law, Ellie’s mother has no legal right to retain her sperm, or to use it to fulfil Ellie’s wishes. In this paper, we raise several key ethical questions on this case, namely: does a refusal to bring Ellie’s children into the world wrong her posthumously? Is Ellie’s mother morally entitled to use her daughter’s sperm as Ellie wished? Should the fact that Ellie was a minor at the time of her death or the fact that she was transgendered undermine her wish to have children? Can Ellie become a parent posthumously? We consider how these complex ethical questions could be approached.
Efficacy of endovascular intratumoral embolization for meningioma: assessment using dynamic susceptibility contrast-enhanced perfusion-weighted imaging
Authors: Asai Katsunori , Nakamura Hajime , Watanabe Yoshiyuki , Nishida Takeo , Sakai Mio , Arisawa Atsuko , Takagaki Masatoshi , Arita Hideyuki , Ozaki Tomohiko , Kagawa Naoki , Fujimoto Yasunori , Nakanishi Katsuyuki , Kinoshita Manabu , Kishima Haruhiko
Published: March 2021

Background

In preoperative embolization for intracranial meningioma, endovascular intratumoral embolization is considered to be more effective for the reduction of tumorous vascularity than proximal feeder occlusion. In this study, we aimed to reveal different efficacies for reducing tumor blood flow in meningiomas by comparing endovascular intratumoral embolization and proximal feeder occlusion using dynamic susceptibility contrast-enhanced perfusion-weighted imaging (DSC-PWI).

Methods

28 consecutive patients were included. DSC-PWI was performed before and after embolization for intracranial meningiomas. Normalized tumor blood volume (nTBV) of voxels of interest of whole tumors were measured from the DSC-PWI data before and after embolization. ΔnTBV% was compared between the cases that received intratumoral embolization and proximal feeder occlusion.

Results

ΔnTBV% in the intratumoral embolization group (42.4±29.8%) was higher than that of the proximal feeder occlusion group (15.3±14.3%, p=0.0039). We used three types of embolic materials and ΔnTBV% did not differ between treatments with or without the use of each material: 42.8±42.4% vs 28.7±20.1% for microspheres (p=0.12), 36.1±20.6% vs 28.1±41.1% for n-butyl cyanoacrylate (p=0.33), and 32.3±37.3% vs 34.1±19.0% for bare platinum coils (p=0.77).

Conclusions

The flow reduction effect of intratumoral embolization was superior to that of proximal feeder occlusion in preoperative embolization for intracranial meningioma in an assessment using DSC-PWI.
Preclinical testing platforms for mechanical thrombectomy in stroke: a review on phantoms, in-vivo animal, and cadaveric models
Authors: Liu Yang , Abbasi Mehdi , Arturo Larco Jorge L , Kadirvel Ramanathan , Kallmes David F , Brinjikji Waleed , Savastano Luis
Published: March 2021

Preclinical testing platforms have been instrumental in the research and development of thrombectomy devices. However, there is no single model which fully captures the complexity of cerebrovascular anatomy, physiology, and the dynamic artery-clot-device interaction. This article provides a critical review of phantoms, in-vivo animal, and human cadaveric models used for thrombectomy testing and provides insights into the strengths and limitations of each platform. Articles published in the past 10 years that reported thrombectomy testing platforms were identified. Characteristics of each test platform, such as intracranial anatomy, artery tortuosity, vessel friction, flow conditions, device-vessel interaction, and visualization, were captured and benchmarked against human cerebral vessels involved in large-vessel occlusion stroke. Thrombectomy phantoms have been constructed from silicone, direct 3D-printed polymers, and glass. These phantoms represent oversimplified patient-specific cerebrovascular geometry but enable adequate visualization of devices and clots under appropriate flow conditions. They do not realistically mimic the artery-clot interaction. For the animal models, arteries from swine, canines, and rabbits have been reported. These models can reasonably replicate the artery-clot-device interaction and have the unique value of evaluating the safety of thrombectomy devices. However, the vasculature geometries are substantially less complex and flow conditions are different from human cerebral arteries. Cadaveric models are the most accurate vascular representations but with limited access and challenges in reproducibility of testing conditions. Multiple test platforms should be likely used for comprehensive evaluation of thrombectomy devices. Interpretation of the testing results should take into consideration platform-specific limitations.
A novel angiographic classification for the endovascular recanalization of symptomatic nonacute extracranial vertebral artery occlusion
Authors: Gao Feng , Zheng Hongbo , Guo Xu , Sun Xuan , Miao Zhongrong
Published: March 2021

Background

There remains major uncertainty regarding the optimal therapy for symptomatic nonacute extracranial vertebral artery occlusion (EVAO). Endovascular recanalization for EVAO is technically challenging, and limited data are available. This research aimed to report a multicenter clinical experience of endovascular recanalization for symptomatic nonacute EVAO and establish a novel angiographic classification.

Methods

From June 2011 to December 2019, 50 symptomatic nonacute EVAO patients treated with endovascular recanalization in three regional referral stroke centers were retrospectively analyzed. All patients were categorized into four groups based on the angiographic classification. The rates of technical success, periprocedural complications, any stroke or death within 1 month, and follow-up data were assessed.

Results

The rates of technical success, periprocedural complications, and any stroke or death within 1 month were 86.0% (43/50), 12.0% (6/50), and 4.0% (2/50), respectively. The recanalization rates gradually decreased from Type A to Type D (100%, 94.7%, 80%, and 63.6%, respectively; P=0.007). The EVAO patients in the Type A group with tapered stump and short-segment occlusions showed excellent recanalization effects, with 100% technical success rates and no complications. Conversely, the lowest recanalization rate of 63.6% (7/11) and the highest periprocedural complication rate of 27.3% (3/11) were observed for the Type D group.

Conclusions

Endovascular recanalization for symptomatic nonacute EVAO is technically feasible, especially Type A EVAO patients, which can provide an alternative treatment option for recurrent vertebrobasilar ischemia despite optimal medical therapy. The angiographic categorization established in this study is conducive to the selection of suitable patients prior to treatment decision.
Empiric antibiotics for community-acquired pneumonia in adult patients: a systematic review and a network meta-analysis
Authors: Montes-Andujar Lara , Tinoco Elena , Baez-Pravia Orville , Martin-Saborido Carlos , Blanco-Schweizer Pablo , Segura Carmen , Prol Silva Estefania , Reyes Vivivan , Rodriguez Cobo Ana , Zurdo Carmen , Angel Verónica , Varona Olga , Valero José , Suarez del Villar Rafael , Ortiz Guillermo , Villanueva Julio , Menéndez Justo , Blanco Jesús , Torres Antoni , Cardinal-Fernández Pablo A
Published: March 2021

Objective

The main aim of this network meta-analysis is to identify the empiric antibiotic (Em-ATB) with the highest probability of being the best (HPBB) in terms of (1) cure rate and (2) mortality rate in hospitalised patients with community acquired pneumonia (CAP) .

Method

Inclusion criteria: (1) adult patients (>16 years old) diagnosed with CAP that required hospitalisation; (2) randomised to at least two different Em-ATBs, (3) that report cure rate and (4) are written in English or Spanish. Exclusion criteria: (1) ambiguous antibiotics protocol and (2) published exclusively in abstract or letter format. Data sources: Medline, Embase, Cochrane and citation reviews from 1 January 2000 to 31 December 2018. Risk of bias: Cochrane’s tool. Quality of the systematic review (SR): A MeaSurement Tool to Assess systematic Reviews-2. Certainity of the evidence: Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development and Evaluation. Statistical analyses: frequentist method performed with the ‘netmeta’ library, R package.

Results

27 randomised controlled trials (RCTs) from the initial 41 307 screened citations were included. Regarding the risk of bias, more than one quarter of the studies presented low risk and no study presented high risk in all domains. The SR quality is moderate.For cure,two networks were constructed. Thus, two Em-ATBs have the HPBB: cetaroline 600 mg (two times a day) and piperacillin 2000 mg (two times a day).For mortality,three networks were constructed. Thus, three Em-ATBs have the HPBB: ceftriaxone 2000 mg (once a day) plus levofloxacin 500 (two times a day), ertapenem 1000 mg (two times a day) and amikacin 250 mg (two times a day) plus clarithromycin 500 mg (two times a day). The certainity of evidence for each results is moderate.

Conclusion

For cure rate, ceftaroline and piperaciline are the options with the HPBB. However, for mortality rate, the options are ceftriaxone plus levofloxacin, ertapenem and amikacin plus clarithromycin. It seems necessary to conduct an RCT that compares treatments with the HPBB for each event (cure or mortality) (CRD42017060692).
A prospective longitudinal study of risk factors associated with cattle lameness in southern Alberta feedlots
Authors: Marti S. , Jelinski M.D. , Janzen E.D. , Jelinski M.J. , Dorin C.L. , Orsel K. , Pajor E.A. , Shearer J. , Millman S.T. , Schwartzkopf-Genswein K.S.
Published: March 2021

The objectives of this study were to determine the incidence proportion of lameness in feedlot cattle and the associated risk factors. Lameness was studied in two southern Alberta feedlots over a 2 yr period. The incidence proportion of lameness was 36.3% for all calves pulled for treatment. Risk factors associated (P < 0.0001) with increased lameness included body weight (BW), type of cattle, source, stocking density, percentage of forage in the diet, season, precipitation 1 d before diagnosis, and average temperature range 3 d prior to diagnosis. As BW (P < 0.001) increased, the odds of becoming lame also increased. Yearlings and Holsteins had greater (P < 0.001) incidence of lameness than respiratory disease. The odds of becoming lame decreased (P < 0.001) with increased pen density and percentage of forage in the diet. Lameness was greatest in spring (P < 0.001) with the odds of becoming lame being more likely (P < 0.001) with increased precipitation and temperature range (P < 0.001). Use of a multifactorial approach including animal, managerial, and environmental factors in a single analysis will improve our understanding of the risk of increased lameness and aid in development of strategies to reduce its incidence in feedlots.
Proton-induced reactions on Fe, Cu, and Ti from threshold to 55 MeV
Authors: Voyles Andrew S. , Lewis Amanda M. , Morrell Jonathan T. , Basunia M. Shamsuzzoha , Bernstein Lee A. , Engle Jonathan W. , Graves Stephen A. , Matthews Eric F.
Published: March 2021

Theoretical models often differ significantly from measured data in their predictions of the magnitude of nuclear reactions that produce radionuclides for medical, research, and national security applications. In this paper, we compare a priori predictions from several state-of-the-art reaction modeling packages (CoH, EMPIRE, TALYS, and ALICE) to cross sections measured using the stacked-target activation method. The experiment was performed using the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory 88-Inch Cyclotron with beams of 25 and 55 MeV protons on a stack of iron, copper, and titanium foils. Thirty-four excitation functions were measured from 4–55 MeV, including the first measurement of the independent cross sections for $$^{\mathrm{nat}}\hbox {Fe}$$

nat

Fe

(p,x)$$^{49,51}\hbox {Cr}$$

49
,
51

Cr

, $$^{51,{\mathrm{52m}},{\mathrm{52g}},56}\hbox {Mn}$$

51
,

52
m

,

52
g

,
56

Mn

, and $$^{{\mathrm{58m,58g}}}\hbox {Co}$$

58
m
,
58
g

Co

. All of the models, using default input parameters to assess their predictive capabilities, failed to reproduce the isomer-to-ground state ratio for reaction channels at compound and pre-compound energies, suggesting issues in modeling the deposition or distribution of angular momentum in these residual nuclei.
Holographic subregion complexity in unbalanced holographic superconductors
Authors: Shi Yu , Pan Qiyuan , Jing Jiliang
Published: March 2021

By using the subregion CV conjecture, we numerically investigate the behavior of the holographic subregion complexity (HSC) and compare it with the holographic entanglement entropy (HEE) in the unbalanced holographic superconductors, which indicates that both the HEE and HSC can be used as good probes to the phase transition in unbalanced holographic superconductors. We observe that the HEE and HSC exhibit a similar linear growth behavior with the change of width for a strip geometry. However, for different fixed widths, the HSC exhibits different behaviors with the change of the temperature, while the behavior of HEE remains consistent. In particular, we find that there are certain conditions that make it difficult to observe the phase transition of this system through the HSC approach. Furthermore, we also note that the unbalance parameter has different effects on the HSC, while the HEE always increases as the unbalance parameter increases.
Strategic Manufacturers in Online Cash-Back Shopping
Authors: Chen Chen , Duan Yongrui
Published: March 2021

Cash-back industry is now witnessing surging development. Prior works on cash-back sites focus mainly on the demand side, while we are also interested in the supply side. We develop a game theoretical model with a manufacturer, an online retailer, cash-back site(s), and heterogeneous consumers. We find that when the cash-back channel cannot attract new consumers, the manufacturer raises the wholesale price and the retailer raises the retail price, which may lead to the cash-back paradox where all consumers face higher prices. Therefore, when there exists a cash-back channel, the manufacturer is always worse off and the retailer is better off when low-type consumers’ product valuation is intermediate, and consumer surplus and social welfare are both lower. When the retailer affiliates with two competing cash-back sites, the manufacturer contributes to the mitigation of double marginalization problem by raising the wholesale price to a lesser extent, which drives the surprising result that when there exists downstream competition, cash-back sites enjoy higher commission rate and under some circumstances, offer lower cash-back rate and enjoy higher profit. We also show that only when the cash-back channel makes the size of the low-type segment double will the manufacturer be better off with this channel.
IoT-Based Smart Healthcare System: A Review on Constituent Technologies
Authors: Sahu Manju Lata , Atulkar Mithilesh , Ahirwal Mitul Kumar
Published: March 2021

The revolution in the Internet of Things (IoT) is redesigning and reshaping the healthcare system technologically, economically and socially. The emerging and rapidly growing IoT-based Smart Healthcare System (SHCS) is seen as a sustainable solution to reduce the burden on the existing healthcare system due to increasing diseases and limited medical infrastructure. IoT-based SHCS plays a vital role in delivery of healthcare services in rural and remote areas where the essential medical amenities, necessary infrastructures and qualified medical practitioners are not available. Therefore, in this paper, a comprehensive investigation of futuristic IoT-based SHCS and its constituents is presented. This paper provides exhaustive review on different techniques and technologies dealing with smart healthcare framework, physiological sensing, signal processing, data communication, cloud computing and data analytics used in IoT-based SHCS. A comparative analysis of existing literature has been carried out to identify the recent trends and advancements in this very dynamic field of global importance. In addition to this, it highlights different issues and challenges, along with the recommendation for further research in the field. The prime objective of this paper is to deliver the state-of-the-art understanding and update about IoT-based SHCS and its constituents by providing a good source of information to the researchers, service providers, technologists, medical practitioners and the general population.
NUMERICAL COUPLING ANALYSIS OF THE INFLUENCE OF BLOOD FLOW ON THE MECHANICAL RESPONSE FOR LIVER
Authors: YANG JING , YANG LIUQING , MA SHANHONG , ZHAO DEMING , QIN TAO
Published: March 2021

As an important basis for determining the state of the liver, the mechanical responses are associated with many factors, and belong to a complex coupling system. Liver tissue has significantly complicated vascular channels. The vascular diameter, vascular deflection angle and vascular depth are defined as the key characteristic parameters. The influences of these parameters on the mechanical responses were analyzed. On the basis of the real mechanical parameters, the coupled numerical model of blood vessel, blood flow and liver tissue was established. The corresponding mechanical responses are obtained by utilizing the different vascular parameters. The effects of vascular parameters on the differences among the mechanical response difference and high strain modulus were analyzed. It was found that the blood vessels in the central area could reduce the liver mechanical response. The inner diameter parameter had main influences on the regions where the stain was more than 0.1. The mechanical difference is greater with larger inner diameter. The influences of vascular depth are greatest when the vascular depth was in the intermediate value, which would increase the liver mechanical responses. With the increment of vascular deflection angle, the liver mechanical response would also increase, and exceed the mechanical response without blood vessels. The findings after analyzing the influence of vascular parameters will provide a basis for the quantitative studies on the influence of blood vessels.
Significance of Job Attitudes and Motivation in Fostering Knowledge Sharing Behaviour Among Bank Personnel
Authors: Umar Muhammad , Sial Maqbool Hussain , Ali Syed Ahmad
Published: March 2021

This research examines the association of job attitudes (i.e. job involvement, job satisfaction, and commitment) with knowledge sharing behaviour of bank personnel through behavioural antecedents (i.e. motivation, attitude, and intentions to share knowledge). The hypothesised relationships among job attitudes (excluding job involvement), behaviour antecedents, and knowledge sharing behaviour are significant and consistent. Notably, the association of job satisfaction with the motivation to share knowledge is insignificant. The survey results are based on data from a stratified multistage cluster sample of 316 public and private sector bank professionals from Pakistan, analyzed using Partial Least Square (PLS)-Structure Equation Modelling (SEM). The research provides a framework for theoretical and practical implications in knowledge-intensive organisations to foster knowledge sharing that increases individual as well as organisational productivity. The study paves the way for future research by including knowledge-oriented leadership, culture, trust, knowledge governance, and citizenship behaviour in the current framework for analysis in diverse geographical and demographical contexts.
The Effect of Online Q&As and Product Reviews on Product Performance Metrics: Amazon.com as a Case Study
Authors: Mousavi Reza , Hazarika Bidyut , Chen Kuanchin , Razi Muhammad
Published: March 2021

Online reviews have received an overwhelming interest in the recent decades. Comparatively speaking, the online product questions and answers (Q&As) have received less attention than online reviews, despite that they both affect the image and the value of a project. Although online reviews and Q&As are both forms of user generated knowledge ion online communities, they may affect customers decision making differently. Furthermore, Q&As are very useful for pre-purchase information-searching and comparison shopping, especially when online product reviews either do not provide the needed answer or getting the desired information requires additional “cost” (i.e. time and effort) to sort out. Our findings show that Q&A traits had a varying effect on the product performance. We also found that review helpfulness is another important factor that affects product sale and popularity on e-commerce sites. The present study adds to existing electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM) and product review literature.
LIS4: Lesk Inspired Sense Specific Semantic Similarity using WordNet
Authors: Kandasamy Saravanakumar , Cherukuri Aswani Kumar
Published: March 2021

Semantic similarity quantification between concepts is one of the inevitable parts in domains like Natural Language Processing, Information Retrieval, Question Answering, etc. to understand the text and their relationships better. Last few decades, many measures have been proposed by incorporating various corpus-based and knowledge-based resources. WordNet and Wikipedia are two of the Knowledge-based resources. The contribution of WordNet in the above said domain is enormous due to its richness in defining a word and all of its relationship with others. In this paper, we proposed an approach to quantify the similarity between concepts that exploits the synsets and the gloss definitions of different concepts using WordNet. Our method considers the gloss definitions, contextual words that are helping in defining a word, synsets of contextual word and the confidence of occurrence of a word in other word’s definition for calculating the similarity. The evaluation based on different gold standard benchmark datasets shows the efficiency of our system in comparison with other existing taxonomical and definitional measures.
Adaptive Drift Detection Mechanism for Non-Stationary Data Stream
Authors: Nagendhiran Nalini , Kuppusamy Lakshmanan
Published: March 2021

Mining is a challenging and important task in a non-stationary data stream. It is used in financial sectors, web log analysis, sensor networks, network traffic management, etc. In this environment, data distribution may change overtime and is called concept drift. So, it is necessary to identify the changes and address them to keep the model relevant to the incoming data. Many researchers have used Drift Detection Method (DDM). However, DDM is very sensitive to detect gradual drift where the detection delay is high. In this paper, we propose Adaptive Drift Detection Method (ADDM) which improves the performance of the drift detection mechanism. The ADDM uses a new parameter to detect the gradual drift in order to reduce the detection delay. The proposed method, ADDM, experiments with six synthetic datasets and four real-world datasets. Experimental results confirm that ADDM reduces the drift detection delay and false-positive rate (FPR) while preserving high classification accuracy.
Bactericidal efficiency of porphyrin systems
Authors: Habermeyer B. , Chilingaryan T. , Guilard R.
Published: March 2021

Photodynamic Inactivation is an innovative technique used to combat bacterial and viral infections which involves the use of photosensitizing agents along with light to generate cytotoxic reactive oxygen species able to kill bacteria and viruses. In the first section of this minireview, porphyrin-based fluorophores are shown to be remarkable dye candidates for PDI (photodynamic inactivation) applications. The second section is dedicated to the description of porphyrin-based antimicrobial materials and their potentialities for industrial applications such as in food packaging or antimicrobial medical devices and hygiene. Finally, the failings and perspectives of PDI are analyzed to demonstrate how the PDI technique could be an efficient and ecologically friendly antimicrobial technique.
An AIE active BODIPY based fluorescent probe for selective sensing of Hg2+ via dual mechanism PET and CHEF
Authors: Singh Vishwa Deepak , Paitandi Rajendra Prasad , Kumar Yogesh , Pandey Daya Shankar
Published: March 2021

A pyrazole appended BODIPY ligand (L) is synthesized and thoroughly characterized by various spectroscopic studies (1H, [Formula: see text]C, [Formula: see text]B, [Formula: see text]F, ESI–MS, UV-vis and fluorescence). The ligand (L) displays aggregation induced emission (AIE) in solution (a mixture of CH3OH and water) and solid state. The vital role of the restriction of intramolecular rotation (RIR) in AIE is supported by viscosity experiments and fluorescence lifetime studies. Photophysical behaviour and aggregate morphology is investigated by UV-vis, emission and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). Multiple strong intermolecular hydrogen bonds (C–H[Formula: see text]N and C–H[Formula: see text]F) play a significant role in the AIE response. In addition, L shows strong sensitivity toward Hg[Formula: see text]ion via chelation induced enhanced fluorescence (CHEF) mechanism. Job’s plot analysis suggested a 1:1 binding stoichiometry between L and Hg[Formula: see text], which has been further supported by electrospray ionization mass spectrometry and density functional theory.
Seismicity of East Anatolian of Turkey and Failures of Infill Walls Induced by Major Earthquakes
Authors: Doğangün Adem , Yön Burak , Onat Onur , Emin Öncü Mehmet , Sağıroğlu Serkan
Published: March 2021

There are three major fault zones in Turkey scattered around the country known as East Anatolian Fault (EAF), North Anatolian Fault (NAF) and Anatolian-Aegean Subduction Zone (AASZ). Last two decades, EAF has been rather quiescent compared with NAF. However, this quiescence was broken in the beginning of the millennium. The strong shaking was started in 2003 with Bingöl earthquake (Mw = 6.3) and the last earthquake on the EAF is the Sivrice-Elazığ (Mw = 6.8) on January 24, 2020. Strong seismicity of these faults damaged the structures severely and caused death of the habitants. This study aims to present, seismotectonic of the region, general characteristics of the earthquakes and more specifically to report structural damage of infill walls of the structure’s damages caused by these earthquakes. Damage evaluation and identification of the observed infill wall damages due to 2003 Bingöl, 2011 Van earthquakes and January 24, 2020 Sivrice-Elazığ earthquake occurred Turkey’s Eastern region, were presented, and possible solutions were suggested. Moreover, the effects of the infill walls on the behavior of structures under static and dynamic load cases are discussed that experienced in these earthquakes. Damages are classified according to formations such as in-plane or out-of-plane, evaluations and the results obtained from the discussions are presented for each category.
MERCANTILISM IN PERSPECTIVE: A HISTORIC REVIEW
Authors: CHIJIOKE ONAH CELESTINE , ALOYSIUS ADUMA , OBI DEBORAH O.
Published: March 2021

Nations’ human and material resources are unevenly endowed, distributed and developed. This allows flow of labor, raw materials, capital and finished products across national boundaries and markets; thus resulting in “mercantilism” as the earliest international economic system that proposes massive and aggressive export over import to accumulate wealth, to have favorable balance of payment and trade and to be still relevant in today’s economy. Game theory and Global Strategic Rivalry theory were used in analyzing various innovations and discoveries (industrial, technological, colonial, imperial, liberalism and globalization) as the economic strategies are offshoots of mercantilist evolvement. Hence, mercantilism never died nor was it buried as claimed by many scholars.
GIS Buildout Analysis and Urban Planning
Authors: BALSAS Carlos J. L.
Published: March 2021

A buildout analysis is an important methodology in land-use planning. The GIS technicalities of doing a buildout analysis tend to be the purview of professionals with a background in geographical sciences. However, it is argued that planners ought to be able to conduct buildout analysis in order to develop a better understanding of how land-use patterns could change sustainably over time depending on a community’s regulatory environment and pace of development. A state buildout analysis is compared and contrasted with buildouts conducted for two local jurisdictions on the opposite ends of Massachusetts: the towns of Amherst and Georgetown. The town of Amherst’s computations identified lower values of developable and new commercial/industrial land and 1,878 more new dwelling units than the state-led planning initiative three years earlier. In the case of Georgetown, the UMass Amherst planning consultancy identified lower values of developable land and fewer new dwelling units and 3.5 million square feet more of new commercial/industrial land than the state-led analysis. A series of implications for teaching buildout analysis in Urban and Regional Planning studio courses is presented.
Determinants of financial literacy in rural India: A study of Aligarh district
Authors: Azeez N. P. Abdul , Akhtar S. M. Jawed
Published: March 2021

What drives rural people to use financial services and products is a critical step in the journey towards financial inclusions. The financial service providers and policymakers have engaged with this challenge by seeking insights into the socio, economic, demographic and cultural factors that prompt people to be aware and learn about financial services and products, try them out, and use them over time. The determinants of financial literacy focus more sharply on the socio-economic demographic factors, and have used ordinary least square, multiple regression model. This model determines how various independent variables namely age, gender, income, religion, social groups, family size, marital status, educational level, occupation, etc. significantly influence financial literacy of the respondents.
Comparative study between conventional and Islamic banks’ liquidity after the Subprime Crisis
Authors: Haddad Achraf , Ammari Anis El , Bouri Abdelfattah
Published: March 2021

The consequences of the Subprime Crisis have shown a serious deficiency in the financing structures of conventional and Islamic banks resulting from frequent resilience. Specifically, the paper argues that large banks that relied primarily on wholesale external funding, such as resources from other banks, money market funds and treasuries of multi-national companies, have been hit hard by the effects of the Crisis. Conversely, banks that relied mainly on deposits from companies or individuals have weathered the Crisis very well because of the interdependent relationships in the banking and foreign exchange markets. Although the two types have suffered the effects of the Crisis, previous comparative studies between the liquidities of conventional and Islamic banks have produced inconclusive results. This brings us to compare their liquidities during a financial stable period (2010–2018) and to provide a more accurate answer using a new original methodology. Based on two populations encompassing all the classical and Islamic banks in the concerned countries, we chose two samples. After a conditional selection of the observations and a filtering process, the sizes were reduced to the value of 63 banks in each sample. Therefore, we have found that Islamic banks are more liquid than their conventional counterparts.
PRIME: A Personalized Recommender System for Information Visualization Methods via Extended	Matrix Completion
Authors: Chen Xiaoyu , Lau Nathan , Jin Ran
Published: March 2021

Adapting user interface designs for specific tasks performed by different users is a challenging yet important problem. Automatically adapting visualization designs to users and contexts (e.g., tasks, display devices, environments, etc.) can theoretically improve human–computer interaction to acquire insights from complex datasets. However, effectiveness of any specific visualization is moderated by individual differences in knowledge, skills, and abilities for different contexts. A modeling framework called
P
ersonalized
R
ecommender System for
I
nformation visualization
M
ethods via
E
xtended matrix completion (PRIME) is proposed for recommending the optimal visualization designs for individual users in different contexts. PRIME quantitatively models covariates (e.g., psychological and behavioral measurements) to predict recommendation scores (e.g., perceived complexity, mental workload, etc.) for users to adapt the visualization specific to the context. An evaluation study was conducted and showed that PRIME can achieve satisfactory recommendation accuracy for adapting visualization, even when there are limited historical data. PRIME can make accurate recommendations even for new users or new tasks based on historical wearable sensor signals and recommendation scores. This capability contributes to designing a new generation of visualization systems that will adapt to users’ states. PRIME can support researchers in reducing the sample size requirements to quantify individual differences, and practitioners in adapting visualizations according to user states and contexts.
On the Detection of Structural Aesthetic Defects of Android Mobile User Interfaces with a Metrics-based Tool
Authors: Bessghaier Narjes , Soui Makram , Kolski Christophe , Chouchane Mabrouka
Published: March 2021

Smartphone users are striving for easy-to-learn and use mobile apps user interfaces. Accomplishing these qualities demands an iterative evaluation of the Mobile User Interface (MUI). Several studies stress the value of providing a MUI with a pleasing look and feel to engaging end-users. The MUI, therefore, needs to be free from all kinds of structural aesthetic defects. Such defects are indicators of poor design decisions interfering with the consistency of a MUI and making it more difficult to use. To this end, we are proposing a tool (Aesthetic Defects DEtection Tool (ADDET)) to determine the structural aesthetic dimension of MUIs. Automating this process is useful to designers in evaluating the quality of their designs. Our approach is composed of two modules. (1)
Metrics assessment
is based on the static analysis of a tree-structured layout of the MUI. We used 15 geometric metrics (also known as structural or aesthetic metrics) to check various structural properties before a defect is triggered. (2)
Defects detection:
The manual combination of metrics and defects are time-consuming and user-dependent when determining a detection rule. Thus, we perceive the process of identification of defects as an optimization problem. We aim to automatically combine the metrics related to a particular defect and optimize the accuracy of the rules created by assigning a weight, representing the metric importance in detecting a defect. We conducted a quantitative and qualitative analysis to evaluate the accuracy of the proposed tool in computing metrics and detecting defects. The findings affirm the tool’s reliability when assessing a MUI’s structural design problems with 71% accuracy.
Theoretical, Measured, and Subjective Responsibility in Aided Decision Making
Authors: Douer Nir , Meyer Joachim
Published: March 2021

When humans interact with intelligent systems, their causal responsibility for outcomes becomes equivocal. We analyze the descriptive abilities of a newly developed responsibility quantification model (ResQu) to predict actual human responsibility and perceptions of responsibility in the interaction with intelligent systems. In two laboratory experiments, participants performed a classification task. They were aided by classification systems with different capabilities. We compared the predicted theoretical responsibility values to the actual measured responsibility participants took on and to their subjective rankings of responsibility. The model predictions were strongly correlated with both measured and subjective responsibility. Participants’ behavior with each system was influenced by the system and human capabilities, but also by the subjective perceptions of these capabilities and the perception of the participant's own contribution. A bias existed only when participants with poor classification capabilities relied less than optimally on a system that had superior classification capabilities and assumed higher-than-optimal responsibility. The study implies that when humans interact with advanced intelligent systems, with capabilities that greatly exceed their own, their comparative causal responsibility will be small, even if formally the human is assigned major roles. Simply putting a human into the loop does not ensure that the human will meaningfully contribute to the outcomes. The results demonstrate the descriptive value of the ResQu model to predict behavior and perceptions of responsibility by considering the characteristics of the human, the intelligent system, the environment, and some systematic behavioral biases. The ResQu model is a new quantitative method that can be used in system design and can guide policy and legal decisions regarding human responsibility in events involving intelligent systems.
A Hindi Image Caption Generation Framework Using Deep Learning
Authors: Mishra Santosh Kumar , Dhir Rijul , Saha Sriparna , Bhattacharyya Pushpak
Published: March 2021

Image captioning is the process of generating a textual description of an image that aims to describe the salient parts of the given image. It is an important problem, as it involves computer vision and natural language processing, where computer vision is used for understanding images, and natural language processing is used for language modeling. A lot of works have been done for image captioning for the English language. In this article, we have developed a model for image captioning in the Hindi language. Hindi is the official language of India, and it is the fourth most spoken language in the world, spoken in India and South Asia. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first attempt to generate image captions in the Hindi language. A dataset is manually created by translating well known MSCOCO dataset from English to Hindi. Finally, different types of attention-based architectures are developed for image captioning in the Hindi language. These attention mechanisms are new for the Hindi language, as those have never been used for the Hindi language. The obtained results of the proposed model are compared with several baselines in terms of BLEU scores, and the results show that our model performs better than others. Manual evaluation of the obtained captions in terms of adequacy and fluency also reveals the effectiveness of our proposed approach.

Availability of resources
: The codes of the article are available at
https://github.com/santosh1821cs03/Image_Captioning_Hindi_Language
; The dataset will be made available:
http://www.iitp.ac.in/∼ai-nlp-ml/resources.html
.
Holistic Transfer to Rank for Top-N Recommendation
Authors: Ma Wanqi , Liao Xiaoxiao , Dai Wei , Pan Weike , Ming Zhong
Published: March 2021

Recommender systems have been a valuable component in various online services such as e-commerce and entertainment. To provide an accurate top-N recommendation list of items for each target user, we have to answer a very basic question of how to model users’ feedback effectively. In this article, we focus on studying users’ explicit feedback, which is usually assumed to contain more preference information than the counterpart, i.e., implicit feedback. In particular, we follow two very recent transfer to rank algorithms by converting the original feedback to three different but related views of examinations, scores, and purchases, and then propose a novel solution called holistic transfer to rank (HoToR), which is able to address the uncertainty challenge and the inconvenience challenge in the existing works. More specifically, we take the rating scores as a weighting strategy to alleviate the uncertainty of the examinations, and we design a holistic one-stage solution to address the inconvenience of the two/three-stage training and prediction procedures in previous works. We then conduct extensive empirical studies in a direct comparison with the two closely related transfer learning algorithms and some very competitive factorization- and neighborhood-based methods on three public datasets and find that our HoToR performs significantly better than the other methods in terms of several ranking-oriented evaluation metrics.
A calculus for monomials in Chow group of zero cycles in the moduli space of stable curves
Authors: Qi Jiayue
Published: March 2021

We introduce an algorithm for computing the value of all monomials in the Chow group of zero cycles in the moduli space of stable curves.
Smooth points on semi-algebraic sets
Authors: Harris Katherine , Hauenstein Jonathan D. , Szanto Agnes
Published: March 2021

Many algorithms for determining properties of semi-algebraic sets rely upon the ability to compute smooth points [1]. We present a simple procedure based on computing the critical points of some well-chosen function that guarantees the computation of smooth points in each connected bounded component of a real atomic semi-algebraic set. Our technique is intuitive in principal, performs well on previously difficult examples, and is straightforward to implement using existing numerical algebraic geometry software. The practical efficiency of our approach is demonstrated by solving a conjecture on the number of equilibria of the Kuramoto model for the
n
= 4 case. We also apply our method to design an efficient algorithm to compute the real dimension of algebraic sets, the original motivation for this research.
Towards fast one-block quantifier elimination through generalised critical values
Authors: Berthomieu Jérémy , Ferguson Andrew , Din Mohab Safey El
Published: March 2021

One-block quantifier elimination is comprised of computing a semi-algebraic description of the projection of a semi-algebraic set or of deciding the truth of a semi-algebraic formula with a single quantifier.