bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Accelerating Ranking in E-Commerce Search Engines through Contextual Factor Selection
Authors: Zeng Anxiang , Yu Han , Da Qing , Zhan Yusen , Miao Chunyan
Published: June 2020

In large-scale search systems, the quality of the ranking results is continually improved with the introduction of more factors from complex procedures. Meanwhile, the increase in factors demands more computation resources and increases system response latency. It has been observed that, under some certain context a search instance may require only a small set of useful factors instead of all factors in order to return high quality results. Therefore, removing ineffective factors accordingly can significantly improve system efficiency. In this paper, we report our experience incorporating our Contextual Factor Selection (CFS) approach into the Taobao e-commerce platform to optimize the selection of factors based on the context of each search query in order to simultaneously achieve high quality search results while significantly reducing latency time. This problem is treated as a combinatorial optimization problem which can be tackled through a sequential decision-making procedure. The problem can be efficiently solved by CFS through a deep reinforcement learning method with reward shaping to address the problems of reward signal scarcity and wide reward signal distribution in real-world search engines. Through extensive off-line experiments based on data from the Taobao.com platform, CFS is shown to significantly outperform state-of-the-art approaches. Online deployment on Taobao.com demonstrated that CFS is able to reduce average search latency time by more than 40% compared to the previous approach with negligible reduction in search result quality. Under peak usage during the Single's Day Shopping Festival (November 11th) in 2017, CFS reduced peak load search latency time by 33% compared to the previous approach, helping Taobao.com achieve 40% higher revenue than the same period during 2016.

 

Corrigendum

The spelling of coauthor Yusen Zan in the paper "Accelerating Ranking in E-Commerce Search Engines through Contextual Factor Selection" has been changed from Zan to Zhan. The original spelling was a typographical error.
Improving Lives of Indebted Farmers Using Deep Learning: Predicting Agricultural Produce Prices Using Convolutional Neural Networks
Authors: Guo Hangzhi , Woodruff Alexander , Yadav Amulya
Published: June 2020

Farmer suicides have become an urgent social problem which governments around the world are trying hard to solve. Most farmers are driven to suicide due to an inability to sell their produce at desired profit levels, which is caused by the widespread uncertainty/fluctuation in produce prices resulting from varying market conditions. To prevent farmer suicides, this paper takes the first step towards resolving the issue of produce price uncertainty by presenting PECAD, a deep learning algorithm for accurate prediction of future produce prices based on past pricing and volume patterns. While previous work presents machine learning algorithms for prediction of produce prices, they suffer from two limitations: (i) they do not explicitly consider the spatio-temporal dependence of future prices on past data; and as a result, (ii) they rely on classical ML prediction models which often perform poorly when applied to spatio-temporal datasets. PECAD addresses these limitations via three major contributions: (i) we gather real-world daily price and (produced) volume data of different crops over a period of 11 years from an official Indian government administered website; (ii) we pre-process this raw dataset via state-of-the-art imputation techniques to account for missing data entries; and (iii) PECAD proposes a novel wide and deep neural network architecture which consists of two separate convolutional neural network models (trained for pricing and volume data respectively). Our simulation results show that PECAD outperforms existing state-of-the-art baseline methods by achieving significantly lesser root mean squared error (RMSE) - PECAD achieves ∼25% lesser coefficient of variance than state-of-the-art baselines. Our work is done in collaboration with a non-profit agency that works on preventing farmer suicides in the Indian state of Jharkhand, and PECAD is currently being reviewed by them for potential deployment.
Chemical and Textual Embeddings for Drug Repurposing
Authors: Nordon Galia , Gottlieb Levi , Radinsky Kira
Published: June 2020

Drug approval is a long and expensive process, that can take 10-15 years and more than 2 billion dollars. Therefore alternative techniques, such as drug repositioning, to identify new uses for approved drugs, has been gaining increasing attention. We examine the employment of different drug embeddings to predict successful drug repositioning. We study the employment of drug molecular structure and show that using larger chemical construct, such as large functional chemical groups, is much more effective than small sub-structures. We then study embeddings that are based on textual medical publications and compare them with the chemical-structure-based embeddings. We eventually present a novel embedding technique to combine the merit of the textual and chemical-based approaches. We provide empirical results on a repositioning benchmark set. Additionally, we present an application of such embedding as part of an ongoing repositioning research conducted with a major health care supplier, and identify a novel drug and indication. The pair has been verified on a corpus of 1.5 million patient EHR data.
Using Small Business Banking Data for Explainable Credit Risk Scoring
Authors: Wang Wei , Lesner Christopher , Ran Alexander , Rukonic Marko , Xue Jason , Shiu Eric
Published: June 2020

Machine learning applied to financial transaction records can predict how likely a small business is to repay a loan. For this purpose we compared a traditional scorecard credit risk model against various machine learning models and found that XGBoost with monotonic constraints outperformed scorecard model by 7% in K-S statistic. To deploy such a machine learning model in production for loan application risk scoring it must comply with lending industry regulations that require lenders to provide understandable and specific reasons for credit decisions. Thus we also developed a loan decision explanation technique based on the ideas of WoE and SHAP. Our research was carried out using a historical dataset of tens of thousands of loans and millions of associated financial transactions. The credit risk scoring model based on XGBoost with monotonic constraints and SHAP explanations described in this paper have been deployed by QuickBooks Capital to assess incoming loan applications since July 2019.
Plan2Dance: Planning Based Choreographing from Music
Authors: Liu Yuechang , Xie Dongbo , Zhuo Hankz Hankui , Lai Liqian
Published: June 2020

The field of dancing robots has drawn much attention from numerous sources. Despite the success of previous systems on choreography for robots to dance with external stimuli, they are often either limited to a pre-defined set of movements or lack of considering “hard” relations among dancing motions. In the demonstration, we design a planning based choreographing system, which views choreography with music as planning problems and solve the problems with off-the-shelf planners. Our demonstration exhibits the effectiveness of our system via evaluating our system with various music.
Explainable Agency in Reinforcement Learning Agents
Authors: Madumal Prashan
Published: June 2020

This thesis explores how reinforcement learning (RL) agents can provide explanations for their actions and behaviours. As humans, we build causal models to encode cause-effect relations of events and use these to explain why events happen. Taking inspiration from cognitive psychology and social science literature, I build causal explanation models and explanation dialogue models for RL agents. By mimicking human-like explanation models, these agents can provide explanations that are natural and intuitive to humans.
Algorithmic Bias in Recidivism Prediction: A Causal Perspective (Student Abstract)
Authors: Khademi Aria , Honavar Vasant
Published: June 2020

ProPublica's analysis of recidivism predictions produced by Correctional Offender Management Profiling for Alternative Sanctions (COMPAS) software tool for the task, has shown that the predictions were racially biased against African American defendants. We analyze the COMPAS data using a causal reformulation of the underlying algorithmic fairness problem. Specifically, we assess whether COMPAS exhibits racial bias against African American defendants using FACT, a recently introduced causality grounded measure of algorithmic fairness. We use the Neyman-Rubin potential outcomes framework for causal inference from observational data to estimate FACT from COMPAS data. Our analysis offers strong evidence that COMPAS exhibits racial bias against African American defendants. We further show that the FACT estimates from COMPAS data are robust in the presence of unmeasured confounding.
Distill BERT to Traditional Models in Chinese Machine Reading Comprehension (Student Abstract)
Authors: Ren Xingkai , Shi Ronghua , Li Fangfang
Published: June 2020

Recently, unsupervised representation learning has been extremely successful in the field of natural language processing. More and more pre-trained language models are proposed and achieved the most advanced results especially in machine reading comprehension. However, these proposed pre-trained language models are huge with hundreds of millions of parameters that have to be trained. It is quite time consuming to use them in actual industry. Thus we propose a method that employ a distillation traditional reading comprehension model to simplify the pre-trained language model so that the distillation model has faster reasoning speed and higher inference accuracy in the field of machine reading comprehension. We evaluate our proposed method on the Chinese machine reading comprehension dataset CMRC2018 and greatly improve the accuracy of the original model. To the best of our knowledge, we are the first to propose a method that employ the distillation pre-trained language model in Chinese machine reading comprehension.
Biologically Inspired Sleep Algorithm for Reducing Catastrophic Forgetting in Neural Networks
Authors: Tadros Timothy , Krishnan Giri , Ramyaa Ramyaa , Bazhenov Maxim
Published: June 2020

Artificial neural networks (ANNs) are known to suffer from catastrophic forgetting: when learning multiple tasks, they perform well on the most recently learned task while failing to perform on previously learned tasks. In biological networks, sleep is known to play a role in memory consolidation and incremental learning. Motivated by the processes that are known to be involved in sleep generation in biological networks, we developed an algorithm that implements a sleep-like phase in ANNs. In an incremental learning framework, we demonstrate that sleep is able to recover older tasks that were otherwise forgotten. We show that sleep creates unique representations of each class of inputs and neurons that were relevant to previous tasks fire during sleep, simulating replay of previously learned memories.
Learning Sense Representation from Word Representation for Unsupervised Word Sense Disambiguation (Student Abstract)
Authors: Wang Jie , Fu Zhenxin , Li Moxin , Zhang Haisong , Zhao Dongyan , Yan Rui
Published: June 2020

Unsupervised WSD methods do not rely on annotated training datasets and can use WordNet. Since each ambiguous word in the WSD task exists in WordNet and each sense of the word has a gloss, we propose SGM and MGM to learn sense representations for words in WordNet using the glosses. In the WSD task, we calculate the similarity between each sense of the ambiguous word and its context to select the sense with the highest similarity. We evaluate our method on several benchmark WSD datasets and achieve better performance than the state-of-the-art unsupervised WSD systems.
Improving biodiesel made from cottonseed and soyabean oil with partial hydrogenation
Authors: Adu-Mensah Derick , Mei Deqing , Zuo Lei , Dai Shengchao , Gao Yaping
Published: June 2020

Biodiesel limitations such as poor cold-flow properties and oxidation stability limit its usage in diesel engines. Partial hydrogenation is reported to be one of the ways to improve these limitations. Partial hydrogenation of biodiesel made from cottonseed and soyabean oil was studied. Before and after hydrogenation, the fatty acid methyl ester contents of cottonseed and soyabean biodiesel were detected with gas chromatography–mass spectrometry. It was revealed that methyl linolenic and methyl linoleic decreased while methyl stearic and methyl oleic increased after the partial hydrogenation for both soyabean and cottonseed biodiesel. Methyl oleic increased by 127 and 237% for soyabean and cottonseed biodiesel, respectively. A thermogravimetric test was also conducted on the fuel samples to observe the volatilisation of the fuels. There was an increase in fuel properties such as cetane number and kinematic viscosity, while iodine value decreased after partial hydrogenation. In addition, there was no significant change in oxygen content, low-heat value and density for both soyabean and cottonseed biodiesel. In summary, partial hydrogenation is a good method of upgrading biodiesel fuel properties such as cold-flow properties and oxidation stability.
The biotechnology approach for sustainable concrete material – a review
Authors: Kadapure Santosh Ashok
Published: June 2020

Biomineralisation is a process of formation of calcite from supersaturated solution due to the presence of bacterial cells and biochemical activities. In this article, a biological approach towards the development of sustainable construction materials is studied. Evidence of bacterial precipitation of calcite has led several research groups to explore the possibility of adopting this process in the area of construction materials. The goal of this review paper is to highlight the application of biomineralisation in concrete. The effect of a bio-based agent and bacterial solution on various properties of concrete is discussed. Additionally, the factors in the choice of bacteria for the biomineralisation process are also elaborated. This green biotechnology concept is a promising, environmentally safe substitute for conventional and current remediation methods to mitigate environmental problems in multidisciplinary fields.
How to diagnose and treat post‐stroke seizures and epilepsy
Authors: Zelano Johan , Holtkamp Martin , Agarwal Nivedita , Lattanzi Simona , Trinka Eugen , Brigo Francesco
Published: June 2020

Stroke is one of the commonest causes of seizures and epilepsy, mainly among the elderly and adults. This seminar paper aims to provide an updated overview of post‐stroke seizures and post‐stroke epilepsy (PSE) and offers clinical guidance to anyone involved in the treatment of patients with seizures and stroke. The distinction between acute symptomatic seizures occurring within seven days from stroke (early seizures) and unprovoked seizures occurring afterwards (late seizures) is crucial regarding their different risks of recurrence. A single late post‐stroke seizure carries a risk of recurrence as high as 71.5% (95% confidence interval: 59.7–81.9) at ten years and is diagnostic of PSE. Several clinical and stroke characteristics are associated with increased risk of post‐stroke seizures and PSE. So far, there is no evidence supporting the administration of antiepileptic drugs as primary prevention, and evidence regarding their use in PSE is scarce.
Análise da conformidade higiênico-sanitária de unidades agroindustriais familiares produtoras de derivados lácteos em municípios do Rio Grande do Sul
Authors: Prudêncio de Mera Claudia Maria , Menegazzi Thomas Rosa , Diaz Jorge Stumpfs
Published: June 2020

O presente trabalho, de conteúdo quantitativo descritivo, buscou uma análise da conformidade higiênico-sanitária de agroindústrias familiares, produtoras de derivados lácteos, no Rio Grande do Sul. Nas unidades agroindustriais familiares, o controle da qualidade da produção acontece rotineiramente pelos proprietários, dessa forma, uma avaliação da conformidade de todo seu ciclo produtivo auxilia na redução de prejuízos, relacionados à saúde ou econômicos, agregando para o consumidor e para as agroindústrias um valor inestimável ao produto oriundo de todo esforço produtivo. Nesse contexto, foi aplicado um check list, dividido em 5 grupos, em 10 unidades agroindustriais, com o objetivo de quantificar as conformidades. Pela análise, a média de conformidade por grupo de estudo foi 47,18%, e 55,03% a média geral dos grupos. Ainda, na análise individual das agroindústrias, seguindo o critério de classificação do estabelecimento conforme seus itens atendidos, grupo 1 (76%-100%), grupo 2, (51-75%), grupo 3 (0-50%), nenhuma propriedade classificou-se no grupo 1, sete agroindústrias colocaram-se no grupo 2 e três no grupo 3. Diante desses resultados, melhorias organizacionais no interior das agroindústrias, instauração de programa de saúde dos trabalhadores, melhorias nas instalações, como as telas nas portas e adequação da climatização dos ambientes, programa de controle de matéria-prima, de qualidade do produto final e embalagens e, ainda, implementação de um programa documental de todas as atividades desenvolvidas, proporcionam a melhoria sanitária dos produtos, gerando maior segurança alimentar e credibilidade aos produtores.
Abastecimiento de alimentos producidos por la agricultura familiar en la alimentación escolar en Costa Rica: Potencialidades y limitaciones
Authors: Zúñiga-Escobar Marianela , Grisa Cátia , Coelho-de-Souza Gabriela
Published: June 2020

A alimentação escolar tem sido considerada como um mecanismo de reconexão entre a produção da agricultura familiar e o consumo de alimentos, sendo um ponto de encontro entre a alimentação pública e o desenvolvimento sustentável. Nesse contexto, destaca-se o funcionamento do Programa de Abastecimento Institucional (PAI) no âmbito do Programa de Alimentação e Nutrição do Escolar e do Adolescente (PANEA). Este artigo tem como objetivo analisar as principais potencialidades e limitações do processo de abastecimento de alimentos produzidos por famílias agricultoras na alimentação escolar na Costa Rica. Foi realizada uma pesquisa qualitativa com entrevistas semi-estruturadas e grupos de discussão com participação de diversos atores envolvidos na iniciativa Escolas Sustentáveis, a partir de dois projetos piloto (2016- 2018) nas localidades de Frailes de Desamparados y Coto Brus. Como resultado se evidenciou que as principais limitações centram-se na falta de mecanismos que proporcionem um tratamento diferenciado no abastecimento de alimentos produzidos por famílias agricultoras locais. Por outro lado, os potenciais se expressam nos valores que transcendem aos aspectos econômicos, que se apresentam em manifestações socioculturais e éticas geradas durante o processo abastecimento de alimentos nos centros educativos, respondendo à construção social de mercados que caracteriza as compras públicas de alimentos.
Being disabled persons in Spain: policies, stakeholders and services
Authors: Citarella Antonio , Sánchez Iglesias Ana Isabel , González Ballester Sergio , Gentil Gutiérrez Ana Amparo , Maldonado Briegas Juan José , Vicente Castro Florencio , González Bernal Jerónimo
Published: June 2020

El propósito de este trabajo es resumir el camino histórico de las políticas que llevaron España a desarrollar un sistema avanzado de protección y integración de personas con discapacidad en su sociedad. A través de análisis de las tres fundamentales leyes generales, nosotros argumentamos como es el marco legal español para discapacidad –arraigado en su Carta Constitucional- formuló a nivel nacional y local la mayor legislación supranacional de UN y EU en esta materia. Además, presentamos las principales partes implicadas que facilitan el acceso de personas con discapacidad a los servicios que el gobierno nacional y local proporcionan a los discapacitados. Finalmente, los puntos 4 y 5 ejemplifican respectivamentelas medidasconcretas de ayudasy beneficios para persona con discapacidad y las políticas para el deporte y la actividad física. Teóricamente, el resume muestra como el actual sistema legal español – y su sistema de servicios- concuerdan con el paradigma social de discapacidad compartido a nivel internacional y fundamenta el modelo de rehabilitación o médico en el cual los derechos y la integración de las personas con discapacidad que no eran enteramente reconocidos y ahora ya lo son.
Uma Experiência dos Metabolistas Japoneses na América Latina: o projeto PREVI em Lima, Peru
Authors: Takeuchi Thomas Yulki , Guatelli Igor
Published: June 2020

Este trabalho pretende colocar o Metabolismo, movimento arquitetônico japonês bastante ativo entre as décadas de 1960 e 1970, sob nova luz histórica e conceitual. Interessa aqui, investigar a influência que este movimento recebeu e sofreu das favelas latino-americanas a fim de deslocar a comum preconcepção de que o Metabolismo não se tratou apenas de um movimento high-tech, sendo em fato, uma vanguarda muito mais heterogênea com diversas formas de ser compreendido. Em um destes entendimentos, defendido por Fumihiko Maki e mais ligado ao urbanismo, o fundamento do Metabolismo poderia ser melhor observado no crescimento rizomático das cidades informais da América Latina, não apenas pela sua expansão territorial no espectro temporal, mas também na esfera conceitual de des-reterritorialização. Especificamente, será analisado o projeto do trio metabolista japonês Fumihiko Maki, Kiyonori Kikutake e Kisho Kurokawa no Proyecto Experimental de Vivienda (PREVI), em Lima, Peru, onde o movimento alcançou uma maturidade que influencia ainda hoje projetos de habitações de interesse social, como o famoso Quinta Moroy, 2003, do arquiteto Alejandro Aravena, no qual a influência é uma das mais aparentes.
Frequency and Distribution of MEFV Gene Mutation in Familial Mediterranean Fever Patients: A Single Center Experience
Authors: ÖZEMRİ SAĞ Şebnem , ALEMDAR Adem , ALİYEVA Lamiya , KAYA Niyazi , TEMEL Şehime G
Published: June 2020

Objective
We aimed to evaluate frequency and distribution MEFV gene mutation variants in patients with presumptive diagnosis of Familial Mediterranean Fever (FMF).
Material and Methods
Patients who had undergone FMF targeted mutation analysis between September 2018 and September 2019 were retrospectively analyzed. Twenty-six distinct MEFV gene mutation variants were studied. Demographic and clinical data of study participants were collected from patient charts and hospital electronic database system.
Results
Out of 910 referred patients, 350 (38.5%) were found to have a positive FMF mutation. In total, we detected 41 different genotypes and 26 different mutations in MEFV gene. The most common mutation and genotype were M694V and heterozygous M694V, respectively. Two hundred and seventy-six patients (78.9%) had a single mutation. Seventy-four patients had compound heterozygous mutation (21.1%). The most common compound heterozygous mutation was P369S/R408Q (23.3%). Five founder mutations constituted the seventy-five percent of the all mutations detected. Rare mutations that generally not examined in other studies were present in 15 patients (%4.2) in the form of two different compound heterozygous genotype. The total allele frequency of these rare mutations was 5%.
Conclusion
In this study, we examined an extended panel of MEFV mutations and detected more complex genotypes than most of the previous studies conducted in Turkish patients in the literature.
Ancient DNA Extraction from Skeletal Material v1
Authors: Velsko Irina , Skourtanioti Eirini , Brandt Guido
Published: June 2020

Silica-based total DNA extraction protocol optimised for the recovery of ultra-short DNA molecules from skeletal material powder (e.g. bone, teeth), modified from Dabney et al. (2013) PNAS (doi: 10.1073/pnas.1314445110).
Differentiation of human induced pluripotent stem cells to neural stem cells v1
Authors: Andersson Malin
Published: June 2020

This protocol outlines the steps of differentiating human induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) into cortical linage neural stem cells (NSCs) using a dual-SMAD and Wnt-inhibition method. The cells are cultured in 6 well plates over the course of 14 days, generating approximately 10 million NSCs per well. An immunocytochemistry quality control assay is used to assess the expression of NSC markers including PAX6, FOXG1 and NESTIN.
Aspergillus nidulans protoplast isolation for transfections v1
Authors: W Liu Andrew , Denton Jai
Published: June 2020

Modified Aspergillus nidulans protoplast isolation using Novozyme VinoTaste Pro as an enzyme source. Protocol from previously established method adapted to produce viable protoplasts for transfections from an inexpensive and commercially available cellulase/chitinase source.
Increased Awareness and Decreased Acceptance of Genome-Editing Technology: The Impact of Chinese Twin Babies v6
Authors: Watanabe Daiki , Saito Yoko , Tsuda Mai , Ohsawa Ryo
Published: June 2020

Genome-editing technology has become increasingly known in recent years, and the 2018 news of genome-edited twins in China had a particularly significant impact on public awareness. In the present study we investigate the effect of Japanese media coverage on public opinions of this technology. To identify the effects we employ a questionnaire survey method on a pre-registered sample from online research company Macromill. Our repeated survey from 2016 through 2019 reveal a generally supportive attitude toward the medical application of genome-editing methods. To see this we employed a multinomial logit analysis examining the determinants of negative and positive impressions of the technology. Results show that although editing for medical purposes remained mostly acceptable, its use in fertilizing human eggs was increasingly rejected, especially in 2019, the most recent sample year. The suggestion is that while genome-editing applications in general medical fields are publicly accepted, its use in human functionality enhancement is heavily increasingly resisted. News of the twin babies in China did raise public awareness of the methods but also damaged their reputation. It therefore is important for genome researchers to hold such concerns in mind, keeping the public informed of changing technology fundamentals. As a related question we ask into the public acceptability of genome editing for animal and plant breeding, such as in agriculture and fisheries, as well. We find the Japanese public views the medical and breeding applications of this technology to be unconnected with each other, despite that awareness of both has risen significantly in recent years.
Increased Awareness and Decreased Acceptance of Genome-Editing Technology: The Impact of Chinese Twin Babies v7
Authors: Watanabe Daiki , Saito Yoko , Tsuda Mai , Ohsawa Ryo
Published: June 2020

Genome-editing technology has become increasingly known in recent years, and the 2018 news of genome-edited twins in China had a particularly significant impact on public awareness. In the present study we investigate the effect of Japanese media coverage on public opinions of this technology. To identify the effects we employ a questionnaire survey method on a pre-registered sample from online research company Macromill. Our repeated survey from 2016 through 2019 reveal a generally supportive attitude toward the medical application of genome-editing methods. To see this we employed a multinomial logit analysis examining the determinants of negative and positive impressions of the technology. Results show that although editing for medical purposes remained mostly acceptable, its use in fertilizing human eggs was increasingly rejected, especially in 2019, the most recent sample year. The suggestion is that while genome-editing applications in general medical fields are publicly accepted, its use in human functionality enhancement is heavily increasingly resisted. News of the twin babies in China did raise public awareness of the methods but also damaged their reputation. It therefore is important for genome researchers to hold such concerns in mind, keeping the public informed of changing technology fundamentals. As a related question we ask into the public acceptability of genome editing for animal and plant breeding, such as in agriculture and fisheries, as well. We find the Japanese public views the medical and breeding applications of this technology to be unconnected with each other, despite that awareness of both has risen significantly in recent years.
Translation and Technology: Investigating the Employment of Computer-aided Translation (CAT) Tools among Iranian Freelance Translators
Authors: Abdi Hamidreza
Published: June 2020

The present study aimed to investigate the employment of computer-aided translation (CAT) tools among Iranian freelance translators. Fulford and Granell-Zafra (2005) proposed a model encompassing both information and communications technology (ICT) and CAT tools to support a large number of activities, including document production, information search and retrieval, communications, business management, marketing and work procurement, and translation creation. CAT tools are employed to support document production, business management, and translation creation; and ICT tools are used to support the rest. A questionnaire was used for data collection from Iranian freelancers. As the results indicated, Iranian freelance translators were more interested to employ general-purpose software applications, such as word processing programs and presentation software, whereas they showed less interest in the employment of special-purpose software, such as accounting packages and database software. Moreover, most participants approved the effectiveness of CAT tools in their work.
Citizen Participation in Digitised Environments in Berlin: Visualising Spatial Knowledge in Urban Planning
Authors: Singh Ajit , Christmann Gabriela
Published: June 2020

Digital information and communication technologies influence not only on urban planning but also citizen participation. The increasing level of politically driven involvement of the public in urban planning processes has led to the development of new participatory technologies and innovative visual tools. Using an empirical case study, the article investigates a completed participation process concerning an e-participation platform in Berlin, while focusing on the following questions: (1) How are visualisations communicatively deployed within e-participation formats? (2) In what ways do citizens communicate a kind of spatial knowledge? (3) Which imaginings of public urban space are constructed through the use of visualisations? The exploration of the communication conditions and the ‘methods’ employed will demonstrate the way participants visually communicate their perceptions and local knowledge as well as how they construct their imagining of urban places. In this context, visualisations in participation processes are understood as products of ‘communicative actions’ (Knoblauch, 2019) that allow people to present their visions in ways that are more understandable and tangible to themselves and others. Within this context, by the example of the state-driven e-platform ‘meinBerlin’ a discussion will trace how far digitalised and visualised communicative actions from Berlin residents contribute to the social construction of urban spaces and the extent to which they can be considered a part of cooperative planning.
Burnout Level in Medical Residents Doing Internship in Emergency Medicine Hospital before the Pandemic
Authors: Matyushkina E.Y. , Mikita O.Y. , Kholmogorova A.B.
Published: June 2020

The review of modern studies on the issue of professional burnout in young doctors and medical residents revealed the highest emotional distress in young residents doing internships in intensive care and emergency units. The paper presents the results of the study on 143 medical residents in the multi-profile hospital of emergency medicine. The methodical complex used included Maslach Burnout Inventory, Symptom Checklist‐90‐Revised (SCL-90-R) by L. Derogatis, and a survey on the attitude to professional troubles. Most young doctors pointed out the close relationship between problems with physical health and emotional wellbeing to their professional activity. The vast majority of the participants met the criteria for burnout, as indicated by high emotional exhaustion (69%) and depersonalization (85%) indications from the Maslach Inventory. Although most residents didn’t endorse any problems in communicating with the patients, their high level of depersonalization is more likely to attest to formalizing their relationships with the patients as opposed to having high social competence. The yielded results let us conclude that it is necessary to develop and implement into training programs for medical residents of the multi-profile hospital of emergency medicine programs promoting their communication competence, coping with distress, and preventing professional burnout.
Soil types and their relations with radon concentration levels in Middle Governorate of Gaza Strip, Palestine
Authors: Ubeid Khalid Fathi , Ramadan Khaled Ahmed
Published: June 2020

Determination of natural radioactivity has been carried out in surface and core agricultural soil samples collected from various sites in the Middle Governorate – Gaza Strip, Palestine. Mechanical and chemical analysis has been done to determine soil characteristics. Radon activity concentration measurements were carried out using solid state nuclear tracks detectors, Cr-39. The mechanical analysis results show that they belong to two classes, sandy loam and loamy sand. The sandy loam soil was observed in the eastern side of the study area, whereas the loamy sand was observed in western and middle parts. The radon concentration levels were higher in core samples and were proportionate to the soil depth. Also they were higher in sandy loam than loamy sand soil samples. The radon concentration levels had a positive correlation with fine grains (clay- to silt-size) of soil sample which translocated from upper to lower horizons of soil during its development. Additionally, there was a positive correlation with pH and water content, whereas a negative correlation was observed with organic matter and potassium contents. The positive correlation referred to a large specific surface of fine grains which were located in lower horizons of soil and were able to adsorb more water and consequently led to high radon concentration levels.
Lidia Taillefer de Haya. La causa de las mujeres en Gran Bretaña a través de sus textos. Madrid: Fundamentos, 2019.
Authors: Parrondo Carretero Concepcion
Published: June 2020

La causa de las mujeres en Gran Bretaña a través de sus textosAuthor: Lidia Taillefer de Haya, editor.Madrid: Fundamentos, 2019.AbstractBeing a publication of works by not-so-well-known female writers in Great Britain, La causa de las mujeres de Gran Bretaña a través de sus textos represents a novelty in the field of feminism. The following review offers a generalized view of its layout, as well as the accurate translations of original texts, through a critical reflection of the selected works presented in the book. The collection brings a new approach to the origins of feminism by offering Spanish-speaking readers the opportunity to delve into the minds of those who not only defended the feminist cause in Britain, but pointed the way forward for other women around the world.ResumenSiendo una publicación de obras de escritoras no muy conocidas, La causa de las mujeres de Gran Bretaña a través de sus textos, representa una novedad en el campo del feminismo. La siguiente reseña ofrece una visión generalizada de su diseño, así como de las traducciones fidedignas de los textos originales, mediante una reflexión crítica de las obras seleccionadas que aparecen en el libro. La colección aporta un enfoque nuevo sobre los orígenes del feminismo ofreciendo a lectores de habla hispana la oportunidad de adentrarse en las mentes de aquellos que no sólo defendieron la causa feminista en Gran Bretaña, sino que indicaron el camino a seguir a otras mujeres del mundo.
Calidad de vida en el trabajo de personal de enfermería en clínicas de servicios de salud
Authors: González Ayala Margarita Tayde , López García Maria del Carmen
Published: June 2020

Objetivo: Identificar el nivel de calidad de vida laboral en personal de enfermería de una institución de tercer nivel de atención en salud en la Ciudad de México.

Métodos:  La población estuvo integrada por personal de enfermería de la unidad de hospitalización, la muestra fue aleatoria por conveniencia y quedó integrada por 50 enfermeros. Para evaluar la calidad de vida laboral se aplicó el cuestionario CVL-GOHISALO al cual se agregaron ítems de variables sociodemográficas. 

Resultados: Cuatro de siete dimensiones evaluadas, resultaron con nivel de calidad de vida laboral baja: integración al puesto de trabajo, satisfacción por el trabajo, bienestar logrado a través del trabajo y administración del tiempo libre.

Conclusión: En general la calidad de vida laboral es media-baja, y aumenta la insatisfacción por el soporte institucional conforme al tipo de contrato.
Evaluation of metabolites levels in feces of patients with inflammatory bowel diseases
Authors: Zhgun E.S. , Kislun Y.V. , Kalachniuk T.N. , Veselovsky V.A. , Urban A.S. , Tikhonova P.O. , Pavlenko A.V. , Ilchenko G.N. , Ilina E.N.
Published: June 2020

Inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD), which include ulcerative colitis (UC) and Crohn's disease (CD), are chronic intestinal inflammatory disorders with an unknown etiology. They are characterized by chronic recurrent inflammation of the intestinal mucosa and lead to a significant decrease in the quality of life and death of patients. IBD are associated with suppression of normal intestinal microflora, including a decrease in bacteria, producers of short chain fatty acids (SCFAs), exhibiting anti-inflammatory and protective properties. Among the various methods of intestinal microflora correction, fecal microbiota transplantation (FMT), which engrafts the fecal microbiota from a healthy donor into a patient recipient, is of a particular interest. As a result, a positive therapeutic effect is observed, accompanied by the restoration of the normal intestinal microflora of the patient. A significant drawback of the method is the lack of standardization. Metabolites produced by intestinal microflora, namely SCFAs, allow objective assessment of the functional state of the intestinal microbiota and, consequently, the success of the FMT procedure. Using gas chromatography and nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy techniques, we have analyzed concentrations and molar ratios of SCFAs in fecal samples of 60 healthy donors. Results were in good accord when comparing two methods as well as with published data. Analysis of SCFAs in feces of patients with UC (19 patients) and CD (17 patients) revealed a general decrease in the concentration of fatty acids in the experimental groups with significant fluctuations in the values in experimental groups compared to control group of healthy donors. On the limited group of IBD patients (6 patients with UC and 5 patients with CD) concentration of SCFAs before and within 30 days of observation after FMT was determined. It was shown that FMT had a significant impact on the SCFAs levels within 1 month term; tendency to reach characteristics of healthy donors is unambiguously traced for both diseases.
Variations in modern contraceptive uptake and its correlates in South West and North East Nigeria: a comparative analysis
Authors: Oyinlola Funmilola F. , Bamiwuye Samson O. , Adebowale Stephen A. , Ekundayo Opeyemi O. , Ilesanmi Benjamin B.
Published: June 2020

Background: Family planning programs are implemented specifically to address the sexual and reproductive health challenges of women of childbearing age but these interventions are yet to address regional differences in modern contraceptive usage in Nigeria. Hence, this study aimed to examine correlates of modern contraceptive uptake in South West and North Eastern, Nigeria.Methods: A cross-sectional survey data for women aged 15-49 years was extracted from Nigeria demographic and health surveys 2018 (NDHS). Data analyses were based on a weighted sample of 10,907 (North East= 5406 and South West = 5501) women of reproductive age. The outcome variable was modern contraceptive use. The main explanatory variables were age, employment status, religion, Number of living children, education, and marital status. Frequency distribution, Chi-square test, and binary logistic regression were used for data analysis (α=0.05).Results: The result showed the mean age of women of reproductive age in South West and North East to be 32years and 30 years respectively. More women in South West used modern contraceptive than women in North East. About 91.5% and 75.8% of women in North East and South West respectively did not used any modern method. The result showed that, in the South West, number of living children (OR:4.06, CI: 2.794-5.921), education (OR:1.35, CI: 1.045-1.754) and wealth index (OR:1.77, CI: 1.053-2.973) increased the odds of contraceptive uptake, while maternal age (OR:0.52, CI: 0.282-0.965), religion (OR:0.25, CI: 0.184-0.347) and place of residence (OR:0.68, CI: 0.504-0.916) significantly reduced the odds of modern contraceptive uptake in North East.Conclusions: This study concludes that there are regional variations in uptake and predictors of modern contraceptives use in Nigeria. Therefore, sexual and reproductive health interventions that considers the study’s significant variables should be put in place to increase uptake.
Polycystic ovary syndrome risk: efficacy of self-assessment test
Authors: Taneja Jyoti , Arora Taruna , Jain Anju , Mansukhani Chandra , Bhalla Latika , Nanda Sarita
Published: June 2020

Background: Polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) is a growing morbidity in young women globally. This disease has an association with several exogenous factors like irregularity of menses, hirsutism and obesity. Very few standardized self-assessment tools based on easily observable factors are available for use in the Indian population, which can help them to assess their PCOS risk accurately.Methods: Undergraduate women of the age group 18-22 years enrolled in a university campus participated in the survey questionnaire. Nineteen questions with binary answers as “yes” or “no” were used for self-assessment test. Each “yes” was scored as one mark, and each “no” scored as zero, leading to the maximum score of 19. Scores of the women with irregular menses (test group) were compared to those of regular menses (control group). Welch’s corrected t-test was used to calculate the significance at 5% between the groups. The clinical assessment confirmed the presence or absence of PCOS condition.Results: One thousand and fifty-four women participated in the study. The study showed that 262 (24.8%) of young women reported irregular menstrual cycle. The average total score of the control group was 3.07±2.35, whereas that of the women with irregular menses was 5.93±2.86. 21 out of 28 participants, who scored high, were diagnosed with PCOS, on clinical assessment by Rotterdam criteria.Conclusions: The self-assessment test can assess the risk of PCOS. This test has 75% sensitivity and accuracy in predicting the presence of PCOS.
Postnatal bladder dysfunction
Authors: V. Swathi H. , Samant Padmaja Y.
Published: June 2020

Background: Voiding difficulty and urinary retention is a common phenomenon in immediate postpartum period. Absolute or relative failure to empty the bladder resulting from decreased bladder contractility (magnitude or duration) or increased bladder outlet resistance or both are defined as voiding dysfunction. It needs high index of suspicion or else can go undiagnosed and can lead to magnitude of problems. The study aims to calculate the incidence of dysfunction of bladder in postnatal women and to study risk factors associated with development of bladder dysfunction and management strategies in cases of bladder dysfunction.Methods: Authors did a prospective observational study in a tertiary care hospital. 200 postpartum women were screened for complaints of voiding dysfunction within 6 hours of removal of catheter in post caesarean patients and of normal vaginal delivery. Authors found that the voiding dysfunction was relatively common with an incidence of 20.20%. Following risk factors were analyzed: parity, mode of delivery, pain at suture site, baby weight, para-urethral tear.Results: Postpartum voiding dysfunction was found to be relatively common with statistically significant association found for pain at suture site and para urethral tear. Intra partum events contributed to voiding dysfunction. 93% of patients who with voiding dysfunction could be managed conservatively, and only 7% had to undergo intervention in the form of re catheterization.Conclusions: The early identification and treatment can reduce the pain and discomfort. Majority of the cases resolves with conservative management and nursing staff plays a key role in early detection of the symptoms.
Spectrum of computed tomography findings in gall bladder carcinoma patients: a retrospective observational study from tertiary care oncology setup
Authors: Gul Palwasha , Gul Pari , Altaf Omer , Kaimkhani Talha Yaseen , Asghar Hira
Published: June 2020

Background: Gallbladder carcinoma (CA) is the most common primary biliary carcinoma and fifth most common malignancy of the gastrointestinal tract. Patients are usually asymptomatic early in the course of the disease and as a result, therapeutic window is usually missed. Authors discuss spectrum of imaging findings in CA gall bladder with multidetector computed tomography (CT) as modality of choice.Methods: Retrospective cross-sectional study conducted at Shaukat Khanum memorial hospital and research centre. Data from January 2019 to January 2020 which included 70 patients was collected from HIS. Patients with imaging findings of CA gall bladder were examined who had undergone contrast enhanced CT. Institutional review board approved this study.Results: Out of 70 cases in this study, cholelithiasis was present in 60%. The commonest MDCT finding was mass replacing GB (78.6%), followed by eccentric/diffuse gall bladder wall thickening. Extension to porta hepatis was noted in 25 (35.7%) cases. Antroduodenal involvement was noted in 11 (15.8%), hepatic flexure involvement in 8 (11.4%). Vascular encasement/thrombosis of the portal vein noted in 6 (8.6%). Metastasis at presentation was seen in 16 patients i.e., 22.9%. Majority patients presented with stage III and IV disease.Conclusions: Single-center tertiary care oncology hospital study gives insight about imaging findings of carcinoma gallbladder. Authors conclude that multidetector CT is the diagnostic tool of choice in detection of gall bladder carcinoma, locoregional disease, distant metastasis and hence operability and non-operability of the disease.