bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Are you alone? Measuring solitude in childhood, adolescence, and emerging adulthood
Authors: McVarnock Alicia , Cheng Tiffany , Polakova Laura , Coplan Robert J.
Published: April 2023

The goal of this review was to provide an overview of how solitude has been operationally defined and measured since the year 2000 in psychological studies of children, adolescents, and emerging adults. After applying exclusionary criteria, our review of the extant literature identified n = 19 empirical studies, which we grouped into three broad methodological categories: (1) experiments/manipulations (n = 5); (2) retrospective reports (n = 7); and (3) experience sampling measures (experience sampling methodology; n = 7). A review of these studies indicated considerable variation in how solitude is operationalized and measured. There is also a notable lack of studies measuring solitude in childhood. Implications for ‘what matters’ when assessing solitude are discussed, and we provide a series of suggestions for helping this research area move forward.
Italian good practice recommendations on management of persons with Long-COVID
Authors: Giuliano Marina , Tiple Dorina , Agostoni Piergiuseppe , Armocida Benedetta , Biardi Ludovico , Bonfigli Anna Rita , Campana Andrea , Ciardi Maria , Di Marco Fabiano , Floridia Marco , Gnerre Paola , Grassi Tiziana , Grattagliano Ignazio , Kruger Paola , Leonardi Matilde , Liguori Rocco , Pagani Elisabetta , Perger Elisa , Pricci Flavia , Ruggeri Marinella , Silenzi Andrea , Spannella Francesco , Tascini Carlo , Teté Giulia , Tosato Matteo , Vecchi Simona , Villa Marika , Onder Graziano
Published: April 2023

A significant number of people, following acute SARS-CoV-2 infection, report persistent symptoms or new symptoms that are sustained over time, often affecting different body systems. This condition, commonly referred to as Long-COVID, requires a complex clinical management. In Italy new health facilities specifically dedicated to the diagnosis and care of Long-COVID were implemented. However, the activity of these clinical centers is highly heterogeneous, with wide variation in the type of services provided, specialistic expertise and, ultimately, in the clinical care provided. Recommendations for a uniform management of Long-COVID were therefore needed. Professionals from different disciplines (including general practitioners, specialists in respiratory diseases, infectious diseases, internal medicine, geriatrics, cardiology, neurology, pediatrics, and odontostomatology) were invited to participate, together with a patient representative, in a multidisciplinary Panel appointed to draft Good Practices on clinical management of Long-COVID. The Panel, after extensive literature review, issued recommendations on 3 thematic areas: access to Long-COVID services, clinical evaluation, and organization of the services. The Panel highlighted the importance of providing integrated multidisciplinary care in the management of patients after SARS-CoV-2 infection, and agreed that a multidisciplinary service, one-stop clinic approach could avoid multiple referrals and reduce the number of appointments. In areas where multidisciplinary services are not available, services may be provided through integrated and coordinated primary, community, rehabilitation and mental health services. Management should be adapted according to the patient’s needs and should promptly address possible life-threatening complications. The present recommendations could provide guidance and support in standardizing the care provided to Long-COVID patients.
Treatment of hemimasticatory spasm secondary to parry-romberg syndrome via partial resection of the trigeminal nerve motor branch under intraoperative neurophysiological monitoring: A case report and literature review
Authors: Xu Haitong , Xu Bin , Huang Xianjian , Zhang Doudou , Cai Xiaodong
Published: April 2023

Parry-Romberg syndrome (PRS) combined with hemimasticatory spasm (HMS) is a rare craniofacial disorder characterized by unilateral facial tissue atrophy with paroxysmal involuntary contractions of the jaw-closing muscles. Although a majority believe that this is a result of demyelination changes from the effect of the facial involvement of PRS on the trigeminal nerve motor branches, the mechanism of PRS is presently unclear. Moreover, the therapeutic effects of existing drugs that target PRS have not been satisfactory. For intolerable spasms of the masticatory muscles, botulinum toxin injection may temporarily relieve the symptoms of spasms. We report a case of HMS secondary to PRS that was treated via a partial resection of the trigeminal nerve motor branch under intraoperative neurophysiological monitoring.
Characterization of the input material quality for the production of tisagenlecleucel by multiparameter flow cytometry and its relation to the clinical outcome
Authors: Štach Martin , Pytlík Robert , Šmilauerová Kristýna , Rychlá Jana , Mucha Martin , Musil Jan , Koladiya Abhishek , Nemec Matěj , Petráčková Martina , Kaštánková Iva , Pecherková Pavla , Šrámková Lucie , Polgárová Kamila , Trněný Marek , Lesný Petr , Vydra Jan , Otáhal Pavel
Published: April 2023

Tisagenlecleucel (tisa-cel) is a CD19-specific CAR-T cell product approved for the treatment of relapsed/refractory (r/r) DLBCL or B-ALL. We have followed a group of patients diagnosed with childhood B-ALL (n = 5), adult B-ALL (n = 2), and DLBCL (n = 25) who were treated with tisa-cel under non-clinical trial conditions. The goal was to determine how the intensive pretreatment of patients affects the produced CAR-T cells, their in vivo expansion, and the outcome of the therapy. Multiparametric flow cytometry was used to analyze the material used for manufacturing CAR-T cells (apheresis), the CAR-T cell product itself, and blood samples obtained at three timepoints after administration. We present the analysis of memory phenotype of CD4/CD8 CAR-T lymphocytes (CD45RA, CD62L, CD27, CD28) and the expression of inhibitory receptors (PD-1, TIGIT). In addition, we show its relation to the patients’ clinical characteristics, such as tumor burden and sensitivity to prior therapies. Patients who responded to therapy had a higher percentage of CD8+CD45RA+CD27+ T cells in the apheresis, although not in the produced CAR-Ts. Patients with primary refractory aggressive B-cell lymphomas had the poorest outcomes which was characterized by undetectable CAR-T cell expansion in vivo. No clear correlation of the outcome with the immunophenotypes of CAR-Ts was observed. Our results suggest that an important parameter predicting therapy efficacy is CAR-Ts’ level of expansion in vivo but not the immunophenotype. After CAR-T cells’ administration, measurements at several timepoints accurately detect their proliferation intensity in vivo. The outcome of CAR-T cell therapy largely depends on biological characteristics of the tumors rather than on the immunophenotype of produced CAR-Ts.
A National Survey Comparing Patients’ and Transplant Professionals’ Research Priorities in the Swiss Transplant Cohort Study
Authors: Beckmann Sonja , Mauthner Oliver , Schick Liz , Rochat Jessica , Lovis Christian , Boehler Annette , Binet Isabelle , Huynh-Do Uyen , De Geest Sabina ,   the Psychosocial Interest Group,   the Swiss Transplant Cohort Study
Published: April 2023

We aimed to identify, assess, compare and map research priorities of patients and professionals in the Swiss Transplant Cohort Study. The project followed 3 steps. 1) Focus group interviews identified patients’ (n = 22) research priorities. 2) A nationwide survey assessed and compared the priorities in 292 patients and 175 professionals. 3) Priorities were mapped to the 4 levels of Bronfenbrenner’s ecological framework. The 13 research priorities (financial pressure, medication taking, continuity of care, emotional well-being, return to work, trustful relationships, person-centredness, organization of care, exercise and physical fitness, graft functioning, pregnancy, peer contact and public knowledge of transplantation), addressed all framework levels: patient (n = 7), micro (n = 3), meso (n = 2), and macro (n = 1). Comparing each group’s top 10 priorities revealed that continuity of care received highest importance rating from both (92.2% patients, 92.5% professionals), with 3 more agreements between the groups. Otherwise, perspectives were more diverse than congruent: Patients emphasized patient level priorities (emotional well-being, graft functioning, return to work), professionals those on the meso level (continuity of care, organization of care). Patients’ research priorities highlighted a need to expand research to the micro, meso and macro level. Discrepancies should be recognized to avoid understudying topics that are more important to professionals than to patients.
An Information Entropy Masked Vision Transformer (IEM-ViT) Model for Recognition of Tea Diseases
Authors: Zhang Jiahong , Guo Honglie , Guo Jin , Zhang Jing
Published: April 2023

Tea is one of the most popular drinks in the world. The rapid and accurate recognition of tea diseases is of great significance for taking targeted preventive measures. In this paper, an information entropy masked vision transformation (IEM-ViT) model was proposed for the rapid and accurate recognition of tea diseases. The information entropy weighting (IEW) method was used to calculate the IE of each segment of the image, so that the model could learn the maximum amount of knowledge and information more quickly and accurately. An asymmetric encoder–decoder architecture was used in the masked autoencoder (MAE), where the encoder operated on only a subset of visible patches and the decoder recovered the labeled masked patches, reconstructing the missing pixels for parameter sharing and data augmentation. The experimental results showed that the proposed IEM-ViT had an accuracy of 93.78% for recognizing the seven types of tea diseases. In comparison to the currently common image recognition algorithms including the ResNet18, VGG16, and VGG19, the recognition accuracy was improved by nearly 20%. Additionally, in comparison to the other six published tea disease recognition methods, the proposed IEM-ViT model could recognize more types of tea diseases and the accuracy was improved simultaneously.
Modeling Soil Organic Carbon Dynamics of Arable Land across Scales: A Simplified Assessment of Alternative Management Practices on the Level of Administrative Units
Authors: Witing Felix , Volk Martin , Franko Uwe
Published: April 2023

Regional assessments of soil organic carbon (SOC) trends and the carbon sequestration potential of alternative management practices (AMP) are highly relevant for developing climate change mitigation strategies for the agricultural sector. Such studies could benefit from simplified SOC modeling approaches on the scale of administrative units as this often corresponds to the level of policy-making and data availability. However, there is a risk of systematic errors in such scaling operations. To overcome this problem, we performed a scaling experiment where we simulated the SOC dynamics of the arable soils of the State of Saxony (Germany) across a series of scales using the CANDY Carbon Balance (CCB) model. Specifically, we developed model set-ups on four different administrative levels (NUTS1, NUTS2, NUTS3, and LAU) and evaluated the simulation results of the upscaled models against a 500 m grid-based reference model. Furthermore, we quantified the carbon sequestration potential of selected AMP scenarios (addressing field grass, cover crops, and conservation tillage) across all scales. The upscaled model set-ups adequately simulated the SOC trends of Saxon arable land compared to the grid-based reference simulation (scaling error: 0.8–3.8%), while providing significant benefits for model application, data availability and runtime. The carbon sequestration potential of the AMP scenarios (1.33 Mt C until 2050) was slightly overestimated (+0.07–0.09 Mt C) by the upscaled model set-ups. Regardless of the scale of model set-up, we showed that the use of aggregated statistical input data could lead to a systematic underestimation of SOC trends. LAU and NUTS3 levels were shown to be a suitable compromise for effectively quantifying SOC dynamics and allowed for an acceptable spatial prioritization of AMPs. Such simplified, scale-adapted assessments are valuable for cross-regional comparisons and for communication to and among decision-makers, and might provide a quantitative basis for discussions on the effectiveness of AMPs in various stakeholder processes.
Energetic Properties and Biomass Productivity of Switchgrass (Panicum virgatum L.) under Agroecological Conditions in Northwestern Croatia
Authors: Matin Božidar , Leto Josip , Antonović Alan , Brandić Ivan , Jurišić Vanja , Matin Ana , Krička Tajana , Grubor Mateja , Kontek Mislav , Bilandžija Nikola
Published: April 2023

Biomass as a renewable energy source includes energy crops that are not used for food but solely for biomass production with the goal of conversion to various forms of biofuel. Switchgrass, a perennial grass native to North America, has been explored as an energy crop for many years. It is suitable because it does not require much agrotechnical input, is highly resistant to pest infestation and disease development, and can provide very high biomass yields. The aim of this work was to determine the biomass quality of the mentioned plant in relation to the autumn and spring harvest, considering its use in direct combustion processes. Significant differences were found in the percentages of ash, carbon, nitrogen, sulfur, oxygen, and water, as well as in the percentages of micro and macro elements, in the harvest dates studied. Compared to the autumn, the moisture content decreased from 33.88% to 10.95% and ash content from 4.59% to 3.1% in the spring harvest, while the carbon content increased from 47.02% to 47.49%, dry matter from 38.91% to 89.22%, and heating value from 18.60 MJ kg−1 to 18.73 MJ kg−1. Shifting the harvest date from autumn to spring resulted in the production of higher quality biomass for use in combustion processes.
Effects of Eggshell Thickness, Calcium Content, and Number of Pores in Erosion Craters on Hatching Rate of Chinese Alligator Eggs
Authors: Zhang Naijing , Zhang Huabin , Fan Guangwei , Sun Ke , Jiang Qingqing , Lv Zhuowen , Han Boyang , Nie Zhenyuan , Shao Yujie , Zhou Yongkang , Zhang Baowei , Wu Xiaobing , Pan Tao
Published: April 2023

The Chinese alligator (Alligator sinensis), found only in a small region in southeastern Anhui Province, is listed as critically endangered (CR) by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) due to its current declining population trend. Any abnormalities in the physical properties of an egg can decrease the hatching rate. In particular, eggshells play an essential role in embryo development, motivating us to analyze the microstructures of the eggshells of Chinese alligators. In this study, we categorized the eggshells into two groups, based on the hatching rates, and analyzed the relationship between the eggshell parameters (eggshell thickness, calcium content, and number of pores in erosion craters) and the hatching rate, as well as the relationships between the eggshell parameters. We found that the shells of the eggs with high hatching rates were thicker than those of the eggs with low hatching rates. There were also fewer erosion-crater pores on the surfaces of the eggs with high hatching rates than on the surfaces of the eggs with low hatching rates. Moreover, the shell Ca content was significantly higher in the eggs with high hatching rates than in the eggs with low hatching rates. Cluster modeling indicated that the highest hatching rate occurred when the eggshell thickness was 200–380 µm and there were 1–12 pores. These results suggest that eggs with adequate Ca contents, thicker shells, and less air permeability are more likely to hatch. Furthermore, our findings can inform future studies, which will be vital for the survival of the critically endangered Chinese alligator species.
A Forage Allowance by Forage Type Interaction Impacts the Daily Milk Yield of Early Lactation Dairy Cows
Authors: Langworthy Adam D. , Freeman Mark J. , Hills James L. , McLaren David K. , Rawnsley Richard P. , Pembleton Keith G.
Published: April 2023

We tested for a forage allowance effect on the milk yield of early lactation dairy cow herds grazing swards sown with perennial ryegrass (Lolium perenne L.), white clover (Trifolium repens L.) and plantain (Plantago lanceolata L.) relative to perennial ryegrass alone. The examined allowances consisted of offering 12, 14, 16, 18, 20 or 25 kg of dry matter (DM)/cow per day of grazeable herbage, with diverse swards sown as mixtures and spatially adjacent monocultures. After adapting cows to their assigned forage type for 8 days, treatment effects on milk yield and composition, blood metabolites (beta-hydroxybutyrate, non-esterified fatty acids and urea concentrations), body weight change, forage intake and selection differentials for forage species and certain nutrients were monitored over 7 days. We confirmed a forage allowance effect on milk yield improvements in dairy cows grazing diverse swards relative to perennial ryegrass monocultures. Improvements in milk yield were evident at forage allowances of 14 to 20 kg of DM/cow per day, diminishing at the highest allowance of 25 kg of DM/cow per day. Improvements in milk yield for the mixture and spatially adjacent monocultures peaked at forage allowances of 18 and 16 kg of DM/cow per day, equalling increases of 1.3 and 1.2 kg of milk/cow per day, respectively.
Status and Numbers of the Brown Bear (Ursus arctos L.) in Bulgaria
Authors: Serbezov Ruslan , Spassov Nikolai
Published: April 2023

Until recently, the Bulgarian bear population (Ursus arctos L.) was considered one of the significant ones in Europe and one of the few with more than 500 bears. While the numbers of some neighboring populations may be increasing, the Bulgarian population has been on a downward trend since the early 1990s. The probable numbers of the species at the end of the 1980s was about 700–750 individuals. Calculations based on field data from national monitoring and statistical analysis show probable numbers in Bulgaria in 2020 of about 500 individuals (data for the autumn state). This decline is mostly related to poaching due to weaker control activity, the reduction of forest areas and habitat fragmentation. The preservation of the Bulgarian population, which, together with the other Balkan populations and the Apennine bear, has a unique gene pool, is particularly important from the point of view of preserving the biodiversity of the species in Europe.
Effects of Anthropogenic Disturbance of Natural Habitats on the Feeding Ecology of Moorish Geckos
Authors: Martín José , Ortega Jesús , García-Roa Roberto , Rodríguez-Ruiz Gonzalo , Pérez-Cembranos Ana , Pérez-Mellado Valentín
Published: April 2023

Urbanization and anthropic influences can drastically modify a natural habitat and transform it into an easily recognizable “urban habitat”. Human activities can also induce less severe modifications of what apparently might still look like natural habitats. Therefore, these subtle alterations may be hidden but can still cause important negative effects on plant and animals. In contrast, some species seem able to take advantage of these anthropic alterations. Here, we examined the possible effects of the anthropogenic disturbance of an apparent natural habitat on the feeding ecology and body condition of Moorish geckos, Tarentola mauritanica. For this, we compared microhabitat structure, invertebrate availability, the diet composition (estimated from fecal contents), diet selection patterns and body condition of the two populations of geckos inhabiting two contiguous small islands. These islands have similar environmental characteristics, but highly contrasting differences in urbanization and anthropogenic influence. We found that, although the abundance of potential invertebrate prey was similar on both habitats, the diversity of invertebrate prey was lower in the altered habitat. As a consequence, although composition of the diet of geckos was similar on both islands, the diversity of prey and food niche breadth were lower in the altered habitat, and patterns of diet selection changed. However, these inter-habitat differences did not seem to affect the body size and body condition of geckos. We discuss how flexibility in feeding ecology may allow some species to cope with small anthropic disturbances of the habitat.
Colchicine Protects against Ethanol-Induced Senescence and Senescence-Associated Secretory Phenotype in Endothelial Cells
Authors: Zhou Huakang , Khan Dilaware , Gerdes Norbert , Hagenbeck Carsten , Rana Majeed , Cornelius Jan Frederick , Muhammad Sajjad
Published: April 2023

Inflammaging is a potential risk factor for cardiovascular diseases. It results in the development of thrombosis and atherosclerosis. The accumulation of senescent cells in vessels causes vascular inflammaging and contributes to plaque formation and rupture. In addition to being an acquired risk factor for cardiovascular diseases, ethanol can induce inflammation and senescence, both of which have been implicated in cardiovascular diseases. In the current study, we used colchicine to abate the cellular damaging effects of ethanol on endothelial cells. Colchicine prevented senescence and averted oxidative stress in endothelial cells exposed to ethanol. It lowered the relative protein expression of aging and senescence marker P21 and restored expression of the DNA repair proteins KU70/KU80. Colchicine inhibited the activation of nuclear factor kappa B (NFκ-B) and mitogen activated protein kinases (MAPKs) in ethanol-treated endothelial cells. It reduced ethanol-induced senescence-associated secretory phenotype. In summary, we show that colchicine ameliorated the ethanol-caused molecular events, resulting in attenuated senescence and senescence-associated secretory phenotype in endothelial cells.
Distinct Effects of Seed Coat and Flower Colors on Metabolite Contents and Antioxidant Activities in Safflower Seeds
Authors: Li Weilan , Yoo Eunae , Sung Jungsook , Lee Sookyeong , Hwang Sojeong , Lee Gi-An
Published: April 2023

Safflower is an important oilseed crop cultivated primarily for its seeds, which have pharmaceutical properties. Color is an important agronomical trait that appears to be a prior parameter for evaluating the internal quality of plant seeds. This study employs 197 safflower accessions seeds to analyze how their seed coat and flower colors affect their total oil content, fatty acid composition, total phenolic content (TPC), N-(p-coumaroyl)serotonin (CS) and N-feruloylserotonin (FS) contents, and [2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) and 2,2′-azino-bis-(3-ethylbenzothiazoline-6-sulfonic acid) (ABTS)] radical scavenging activities. Significant variations were observed in the targeted metabolite contents and antioxidant properties among genotypes. Notably, the linoleic acid content, total unsaturated fatty acid content, the ratio of total unsaturated fatty acid to total saturated fatty acid, CS, FS, ABTS, and DPPH scavenging capacities varied significantly based on seed coat color, with white-seeded genotypes having the highest average values of these parameters. Moreover, the linoleic acid content differed significantly (p < 0.05) among the genotypes with varying flower colors, with white-flowered accessions having the highest average content. Furthermore, genotypes K185105 (No. 75) and K175278 (No. 146) were identified as promising genetic resources with health benefits. Overall, these findings reveal that seed coat and flower colors distinctly affect metabolite contents and antioxidant properties in safflower seeds.
Human Microglia Synthesize Neurosteroids to Cope with Rotenone-Induced Oxidative Stress
Authors: Lucchi Chiara , Codeluppi Alessandro , Filaferro Monica , Vitale Giovanni , Rustichelli Cecilia , Avallone Rossella , Mandrioli Jessica , Biagini Giuseppe
Published: April 2023

We obtained evidence that mouse BV2 microglia synthesize neurosteroids dynamically to modify neurosteroid levels in response to oxidative damage caused by rotenone. Here, we evaluated whether neurosteroids could be produced and altered in response to rotenone by the human microglial clone 3 (HMC3) cell line. To this aim, HMC3 cultures were exposed to rotenone (100 nM) and neurosteroids were measured in the culture medium by liquid chromatography with tandem mass spectrometry. Microglia reactivity was evaluated by measuring interleukin 6 (IL-6) levels, whereas cell viability was monitored by the 3-(4,5-dimethylthiazol-2-yl)-2,5-diphenyltetrazolium bromide assay. After 24 h (h), rotenone increased IL-6 and reactive oxygen species levels by approximately +37% over the baseline, without affecting cell viability; however, microglia viability was significantly reduced at 48 h (p < 0.01). These changes were accompanied by the downregulation of several neurosteroids, including pregnenolone, pregnenolone sulfate, 5α-dihydroprogesterone, and pregnanolone, except for allopregnanolone, which instead was remarkably increased (p < 0.05). Interestingly, treatment with exogenous allopregnanolone (1 nM) efficiently prevented the reduction in HMC3 cell viability. In conclusion, this is the first evidence that human microglia can produce allopregnanolone and that this neurosteroid is increasingly released in response to oxidative stress, to tentatively support the microglia’s survival.
Oxidative Stress, Inflammation, Gut Dysbiosis: What Can Polyphenols Do in Inflammatory Bowel Disease?
Authors: Li Lei , Peng Peilan , Ding Ning , Jia Wenhui , Huang Canhua , Tang Yong
Published: April 2023

Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) is a long-term, progressive, and recurrent intestinal inflammatory disorder. The pathogenic mechanisms of IBD are multifaceted and associated with oxidative stress, unbalanced gut microbiota, and aberrant immune response. Indeed, oxidative stress can affect the progression and development of IBD by regulating the homeostasis of the gut microbiota and immune response. Therefore, redox-targeted therapy is a promising treatment option for IBD. Recent evidence has verified that Chinese herbal medicine (CHM)-derived polyphenols, natural antioxidants, are able to maintain redox equilibrium in the intestinal tract to prevent abnormal gut microbiota and radical inflammatory responses. Here, we provide a comprehensive perspective for implementing natural antioxidants as potential IBD candidate medications. In addition, we demonstrate novel technologies and stratagems for promoting the antioxidative properties of CHM-derived polyphenols, including novel delivery systems, chemical modifications, and combination strategies.
SSEMGAT: Syntactic and Semantic Enhanced Multi-Layer Graph Attention Network for Aspect-Level Sentiment Analysis
Authors: Xin Xiangzhe , Wumaier Aishan , Kadeer Zaokere , He Jiangtao
Published: April 2023

Aspect-level sentiment analysis aims to identify the sentiment polarity of specific aspects appearing in a given sentence or review. The model based on graph structure uses a dependency tree to link the aspect word with its corresponding opinion word and achieves significant results. However, for some sentences with ambiguous syntactic structure, it is difficult for the dependency tree to accurately parse the dependencies, which introduces noise and degrades the performance of the model. Based on this, we propose a syntactic and semantic enhanced multi-layer graph attention network (SSEMGAT), which introduces constituent trees in syntactic features to compensate for dependent trees at the clause level, exploiting aspect-aware attention in semantic features to assign the attention weight of specific aspects between contexts. The enhanced syntactic and semantic features are then used to classify specific aspects of sentiment through a multi-layer graph attention network. Accuracy and Macro-F1 are used as evaluation indexes in the SemEval-2014 Task 4 Restaurant and Laptop dataset and the Twitter dataset to compare the proposed model with the baseline model and the latest model, achieving competitive results.
Digitalization of Fresh Chestnut Fruit Supply Chain through RFID: Evidence, Benefits and Managerial Implications
Authors: Menanno Marialuisa , Savino Matteo Mario , Accorsi Riccardo
Published: April 2023

This study provides evidence of supply chain (SC) management based on the digitalization of a fresh fruit-supply chain (i.e., chestnuts) using a radio-frequency identification technology (RFID). This research adopted the value-chain operation reference (VCOR) to assess the implications, issues, and benefits of the SC digitalization, and to explore how RFID can be configured regarding the VCOR blocks. Within this framework, the SC stages, processes, and operations were assessed using a tailored performance measurement system (PMS) including a set of metrics tracked, quantified, and evaluated alongside a monitoring field campaign. The results indicated that: (i) the benefits deriving from the RFID are constrained by specific organizational procedures adopted in operations management; (ii) the PMS Indicators of the centralized warehouse, balancing the inventory between the processing line and the distribution channels, presented the most significant improvements across the whole SC.
Effects of Tea Polyphenols Combined with Thermosonication on the Population of Salmonella enterica in Fresh-Cut Wax Gourd during Storage and Its ANFIS Survival Model
Authors: Miao Yingjie , Hu Gaowei , Huang Huanting , Li Yashi , Fu Yongqian
Published: April 2023

Fresh-cut vegetables are exposed to the risk of Salmonella spp. contamination. Effective sterilization methods and early warning systems play important roles in ensuring food safety of fresh-cut products. The aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of tea polyphenols (TP) combined with thermosonication (TS) treatment on inactivation of Salmonella enterica in fresh-cut wax gourd and to develop and estimate models using adaptive neuro-fuzzy inference system (ANFIS) with different membership functions (MFs) for predicting S. enterica population during storage at 25, 10, and 4 °C, respectively. The results showed that both TP and TS treatment can effectively reduce the population of S. enterica in fresh-cut wax gourd. The combination of TP (1.0%) and TS (50 °C, 1 min) treatment followed by storage at 4 °C may be a suitable bacteriostatic scheme for the preservation of fresh-cut wax gourd. Fluorescence microscopy analyses indicated that TP and TS treatment could lead to the destruction of the cell membrane, followed by the leakage of cytoplasm, and, finally, cell death. ANFIS with the gaussmf function performed well in modeling and predicting the population of Salmonella in fresh-cut wax gourd and provided a powerful tool for modelling and predicting microbe population and the shelf life of food products.
Longitudinal Control Strategy for Connected Electric Vehicle with Regenerative Braking in Eco-Approach and Departure
Authors: Bautista-Montesano Rolando , Galluzzi Renato , Mo Zhaobin , Fu Yongjie , Bustamante-Bello Rogelio , Di Xuan
Published: April 2023

The development of more sustainable urban transportation is prompting the need for better energy management techniques. Connected electric vehicles can take advantage of environmental information regarding the status of traffic lights. In this context, eco-approach and departure methods have been proposed in the literature. Integrating these methods with regenerative braking allows for safe, power-efficient navigation through intersections and crossroad layouts. This paper proposes rule- and fuzzy inference system-based strategies for a coupled eco-approach and departure regenerative braking system. This analysis is carried out through a numerical simulator based on a three-degree-of-freedom connected electric vehicle model. The powertrain is represented by a realistic power loss map in motoring and regenerative quadrants. The simulations aim to compare both longitudinal navigation strategies by means of relevant metrics: power, efficiency, comfort, and usage duty cycle in motor and generator modes. Numerical results show that the vehicle is able to yield safe navigation while focusing on energy regeneration through different navigation conditions.
Three-Dimensional Human Pose Estimation with Spatial–Temporal Interaction Enhancement Transformer
Authors: Wang Haijian , Shi Qingxuan , Shan Beiguang
Published: April 2023

Three-dimensional human pose estimation is a hot research topic in the field of computer vision. In recent years, significant progress has been made in estimating 3D human pose from monocular video, but there is still much room for improvement in this task owing to the issues of self-occlusion and depth ambiguity. Some previous work has addressed the above problems by investigating spatio-temporal relationships and has made great progress. Based on this, we further explored the spatio-temporal relationship and propose a new method, called STFormer. Our whole framework consists of two main stages: (1) extract features independently from the temporal and spatial domains; (2) modeling the communication of information across domains. The temporal dependencies were injected into the spatial domain to dynamically modify the spatial structure relationships between joints. Then, the results were used to refine the temporal features. After the preceding steps, both spatial and temporal features were strengthened, and the estimated final pose will be more precise. We conducted substantial experiments on a well-known dataset (Human3.6), and the results indicated that STFormer outperformed recent methods with an input of nine frames. Compared to PoseFormer, the performance of our method reduced the MPJPE by 2.1%. Furthermore, we performed numerous ablation studies to analyze and prove the validity of the various constituent modules of STFormer.
Impact of Concurrent Exposure of Diabetic Male Sprague Dawley Rats to Alcohol and Combination Antiretroviral Therapy (cART) on Reproductive Capacity
Authors: Owembabazi Elna , Nkomozepi Pilani , Mbajiorgu Ejikeme F.
Published: April 2023

The prevalence of diabetic patients who abuse alcohol while on combination antiretroviral drug therapy (cART) therapy is rising in society. Little is known about the impact of this scenario on the testes and male reproductive viability, and therefore, these factors were evaluated. Thirty 10-week-old male Sprague Dawley rats were distributed into five groups of six rats each: control, diabetic only (DM), diabetic treated with alcohol (DM+A), diabetic treated with Atripla, fixed-dose cART (DM+cART), and diabetic treated with both alcohol and cART (DM+A+cART). After 90 days of treatment, rats were terminated, and blood and testes were harvested for immunoassay, histological, and immunohistochemistry analyses. Testicular perturbations of varying severity were recorded in all treated groups for most of the parameters. The DM+A treated group showed the most severe perturbations, followed sequentially by the treated groups DM+A+cART, DM, and DM+cART. Alterations in the testes and seminiferous tubule morphometry as well as the spermatogenic, Sertoli, and Leydig cells were found in all treated groups. Further, a significant decrease in Johnsen’s testicular scores, the appearance of seminiferous tubule lesions, changes in the basement membrane and capsule thickness, and a reduction in the testis connective tissue fibers were demonstrated in the treated groups. Additionally, reproductive hormone levels were altered, and the number and staining intensity of Sertoli and Leydig cells expressing androgen receptors reduced significantly in all treated animals. The study results reveal that the consumption of alcohol and/or the use of cART in diabetic individuals induces a derangement in circulating reproductive hormone levels and in the testicular structure and function, which consequently leads to a decline in the male reproductive capacity.
Experimental Study on Anti-Explosion Performance of the Different Types of Structures in Rock under the Condition of Plane Charge Explosion Loading
Authors: Ji Nan , Wu Xiangyun , Zhao Rongguo , Zhai Chaochen , Zhang Yuefei , Nie Xiaodong
Published: April 2023

In this paper, the straight-wall-arch structure in the rock medium is taken as the research object, and the high-pressure plane charge loading test technology is adopted to study the anti-explosion performance of different types of structures under the explosion loading. Three types of structures, which are individually built with the high-performance reinforced concrete, the C30 reinforced concrete, and the C30 reinforced concrete with a foam concrete backfill layer as well, are tested, and the dynamic responses and damage characteristics of these structures are investigated. The test results show that under the condition of the same plane charge explosion loading, in the vault of the high-performance reinforced concrete test section appears a through-tensile crack with a largest transverse relative displacement between the two straight walls, and the composite structure test section only shows an intermittent crack at the arch foot, which represents a slight damage mode. Meanwhile the arch spring of the C30 reinforced concrete test section suffers a through-compression shear failure with a largest vertical relative displacement between the vault and the floor, which represents a moderate damage mode. Therefore, adopting the high-performance reinforced concrete, and the C30 reinforced concrete with the foam concrete backfill layer, can effectively decrease the damage degree of the rock structures. Compared with the C30 reinforced concrete, the high-performance reinforced concrete can improve the resistance of the structure by improving the structural strength and strengthening its capacity to absorb waves and energy dissipation, and the foam concrete backfill layer can significantly reduce the lateral and vertical relative displacement of the structural free surface and the peak stress of the structural inner layer. The composite structure test section of the C30 reinforced concrete with foam concrete backfill layer appears to be an excellent anti-explosion performance property.
A Rapid Seismic Damage Assessment (RASDA) Tool for RC Buildings Based on an Artificial Intelligence Algorithm
Authors: Morfidis Konstantinos , Stefanidou Sotiria , Markogiannaki Olga
Published: April 2023

In the current manuscript, a novel software application for rapid damage assessment of RC buildings subjected to earthquake excitation is presented based on artificial neural networks. The software integrates the use of a novel deep learning methodology for rapid damage assessment into modern software development platforms, while the developed graphical user interface promotes the ease of use even from non-experts. The aim is to foster actions both in the pre- and post-earthquake phase. The structure of the source code permits the usage of the application either autonomously as a software tool for rapid visual inspections of buildings prior to or after a strong seismic event or as a component of building information modelling systems in the framework of digitizing building data and properties. The methodology implemented for the estimation of the RC buildings’ damage states is based on the theory and algorithms of pattern recognition problems. The effectiveness of the developed software is successfully tested using an extended, numerically generated database of RC buildings subjected to recorded seismic events.
Developing an Urdu Lemmatizer Using a Dictionary-Based Lookup Approach
Authors: Shaukat Saima , Asad Muhammad , Akram Asmara
Published: April 2023

Lemmatization aims at returning the root form of a word. The lemmatizer is envisioned as a vital instrument that can assist in many Natural Language Processing (NLP) tasks. These tasks include Information Retrieval, Word Sense Disambiguation, Machine Translation, Text Reuse, and Plagiarism Detection. Previous studies in the literature have focused on developing lemmatizers using rule-based approaches for English and other highly-resourced languages. However, there have been no thorough efforts for the development of a lemmatizer for most South Asian languages, specifically Urdu. Urdu is a morphologically rich language with many inflectional and derivational forms. This makes the development of an efficient Urdu lemmatizer a challenging task. A standardized lemmatizer would contribute towards establishing much-needed methodological resources for this low-resourced language, which are required to boost the performance of many Urdu NLP applications. This paper presents a lemmatization system for the Urdu language, based on a novel dictionary lookup approach. The contributions made through this research are the following: (1) the development of a large benchmark corpus for the Urdu language, (2) the exploration of the relationship between parts of speech tags and the lemmatizer, and (3) the development of standard approaches for an Urdu lemmatizer. Furthermore, we experimented with the impact of Part of Speech (PoS) on our proposed dictionary lookup approach. The empirical results showed that we achieved the best accuracy score of 76.44% through the proposed dictionary lookup approach.
A Single-Launch Deployment Strategy for Lunar Constellations
Authors: Carletta Stefano
Published: April 2023

Satellite constellations can provide communication and navigation services to support future lunar missions, and are attracting growing interest from both the scientific community and industry. The deployment of satellites in orbital planes that can have significantly different inclinations and right ascension of the ascending node requires dedicated launches and represents a non-trivial issue for lunar constellations, due to the complexity and low accessibility of launches to the Moon. In this work, a strategy to deploy multiple satellites in different orbital planes around the Moon in a single launch is examined. The launch vehicle moves along a conventional lunar escape trajectory, with parameters selected to take advantage of gravity-braking upon encountering the Moon. A maneuver at the periselenium allows the transfer of the spacecraft along a trajectory converging to the equilibrium region about the Earth–Moon libration point L1, where the satellites are deployed. Providing a small ΔV, each satellite is transferred into a low-energy trajectory with the desired inclination, right ascension of the ascending node, and periselenium radius. A final maneuver, if required, allows the adjustment of the semimajor axis and the eccentricity. The method is verified using numerical integration using high-fidelity orbit propagators. The results indicate that the deployment could be accomplished within one sidereal month with a modest ΔV budget.
AMP-GSM: Prediction of Antimicrobial Peptides via a Grouping–Scoring–Modeling Approach
Authors: Söylemez Ümmü Gülsüm , Yousef Malik , Bakir-Gungor Burcu
Published: April 2023

Due to the increasing resistance of bacteria to antibiotics, scientists began seeking new solutions against this problem. One of the most promising solutions in this field are antimicrobial peptides (AMP). To identify antimicrobial peptides, and to aid the design and production of novel antimicrobial peptides, there is a growing interest in the development of computational prediction approaches, in parallel with the studies performing wet-lab experiments. The computational approaches aim to understand what controls antimicrobial activity from the perspective of machine learning, and to uncover the biological properties that define antimicrobial activity. Throughout this study, we aim to develop a novel prediction approach that can identify peptides with high antimicrobial activity against selected target bacteria. Along this line, we propose a novel method called AMP-GSM (antimicrobial peptide-grouping–scoring–modeling). AMP-GSM includes three main components: grouping, scoring, and modeling. The grouping component creates sub-datasets via placing the physicochemical, linguistic, sequence, and structure-based features into different groups. The scoring component gives a score for each group according to their ability to distinguish whether it is an antimicrobial peptide or not. As the final part of our method, the model built using the top-ranked groups is evaluated (modeling component). The method was tested for three AMP prediction datasets, and the prediction performance of AMP-GSM was comparatively evaluated with several feature selection methods and several classifiers. When we used 10 features (which are members of the physicochemical group), we obtained the highest area under curve (AUC) value for both the Gram-negative (99%) and Gram-positive (98%) datasets. AMP-GSM investigates the most significant feature groups that improve AMP prediction. A number of physico-chemical features from the AMP-GSM’s final selection demonstrate how important these variables are in terms of defining peptide characteristics and how they should be taken into account when creating models to predict peptide activity.
Leveraging Dialogue State Tracking for Zero-Shot Chat-Based Social Engineering Attack Recognition
Authors: Tsinganos Nikolaos , Fouliras Panagiotis , Mavridis Ioannis
Published: April 2023

Human-to-human dialogues constitute an essential research area for linguists, serving as a conduit for knowledge transfer in the study of dialogue systems featuring human-to-machine interaction. Dialogue systems have garnered significant acclaim and rapid growth owing to their deployment in applications such as virtual assistants (e.g., Alexa, Siri, etc.) and chatbots. Novel modeling techniques are being developed to enhance natural language understanding, natural language generation, and dialogue-state tracking. In this study, we leverage the terminology and techniques of dialogue systems to model human-to-human dialogues within the context of chat-based social engineering (CSE) attacks. The ability to discern an interlocutor’s true intent is crucial for providing an effective real-time defense mechanism against CSE attacks. We introduce in-context dialogue acts that expose an interlocutor’s intent, as well as the requested information that she sought to convey, thereby facilitating real-time recognition of CSE attacks. Our work proposes CSE domain-specific dialogue acts, utilizing a carefully crafted ontology, and creates an annotated corpus using dialogue acts as classification labels. Furthermore, we propose SG-CSE BERT, a BERT-based model following the schema-guided paradigm, for zero-shot CSE attack dialogue-state tracking. Our evaluation results demonstrate satisfactory performance.
Adaptation of Parallel SaaS to Heterogeneous Co-Located Cloud Resources
Authors: Bystrov Oleg , Pacevič Ruslan , Kačeniauskas Arnas
Published: April 2023

Cloud computing has received increasing attention due to its promise of delivering on-demand, scalable, and virtually unlimited resources. However, heterogeneity or co-location of virtual cloud resources can cause severe degradation of the efficiency of parallel computations because of a priori unknown application-specific performance metrics, load imbalance, and limitations of memory bandwidth. This paper presents the runtime adaptation of parallel discrete element method (DEM) Software as a Service (SaaS) to heterogeneous or co-located resources of the OpenStack cloud. The computational workload is adapted by using weighted repartitioning and runtime measured performance of parallel computations on Docker containers. The high improvement in performance up to 48.7% of the execution time is achieved, applying the runtime adapted repartitioning when the load imbalance is high enough. The low load imbalance leads to the close values of computational load, when small variations in the system load and performance can cause oscillations in subsets of particles. Memory stress tests cause heterogeneity of non-isolated containers, which reduces the performance of memory bandwidth bound DEM SaaS on the co-located resources. The runtime adapted repartitioning handles the constant and periodically variable performance of non-isolated containers and decreases the total execution time of DEM SaaS.