bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Cosmology of modified holographic f(G) gravity and study of baryogenesis
Authors: Chakraborty Gargee , Beesham Aroonkumar , Chattopadhyay Surajit
Published: January 2023

Motivated by the work of Nojiri and Odintsov [Phys. Lett. B 631 (2005) 1–6, arXiv:hep-th/0508049 [hep-th]], this work reports on the cosmology and baryogenesis of modified [Formula: see text] gravity by assuming the background evolution as generalized holographic dark energy (GHDE). For vacuum energy density, modified [Formula: see text] gravity is reconstructed and found to be of positive behavior. The equation of state (EoS) parameter under the purview of vacuum energy density comes out to be quintom. The reconstructed modified [Formula: see text] gravity in GHDE shows positive behavior, and its corresponding EoS parameter is phantom. There is a chance of a big rip singularity and the slow roll parameters are analyzed. Quasi exponential expansion and warm inflation are observed. Finally, baryogenesis is studied. The study suggests that either there may be symmetry between the number density of baryons and antibaryons in the far future, or the generalized second law of thermodynamics is satisfied by the model.
An analysis of regenerative braking and operation of induction motor employing novel dq-axis mathematical modeling with real time simulator and SIMULINK
Authors: Burman Somnath , Maity Tanmoy
Published: January 2023

This paper describes the novel mathematical modeling of the 3-phase induction motor, various operations and study of its dynamic behavior and regenerative braking based on the model. This model uses v/f scheme to apply braking operation with the energy flow to the supply system instead of wasting the energy in braking resistor. It discusses the theory of induction motors, which is explored through both equations and computer simulation model using SIMULINK. The model also helps to study the behavior of the motor during its starting and load variation. The results from the analysis prove the demonstration of regenerative braking and the dynamic behavior and can give an opportunity to learn the different characteristics during these conditions.
A comparison between the OCBA and the KN selection procedures for maximizing the probability of correct selection
Authors: Alrefaei Mahmoud H. , Salhiyeh Dina A.
Published: January 2023

Selecting a system or a subset of systems that have the best performance among many alternative systems is an important area of research. All efforts are paid to do this selection with a high probability of correct selection [Formula: see text]. In this paper, we compare the performance of two popular procedures used to select the best systems, namely, the method of Kim and Nelson [Formula: see text] which is considered as a ranking and selection procedure, and the Optimal Computing Budget Allocation [Formula: see text] procedure. Both of these procedures determine the number of samples for each system that are needed to achieve the maximum [Formula: see text]. Recently, the [Formula: see text] has been developed in order to be able to approximate the value of [Formula: see text], so both procedures approximate the value of [Formula: see text]. To do the comparison, we implement the two methods on two examples; one is a generic example and the other one involves a management of inventory model. The two examples assure that the [Formula: see text] method always outperforms the [Formula: see text] method.
Video Frame Interpolation: A Comprehensive Survey
Authors: Dong Jiong , Ota Kaoru , Dong Mianxiong
Published: January 2023

Video Frame Interpolation (VFI) is a fascinating and challenging problem in the computer vision (CV) field, aiming to generate non-existing frames between two consecutive video frames. In recent years, many algorithms based on optical flow, kernel, or phase information have been proposed. In this article, we provide a comprehensive review of recent developments in the VFI technique. We first introduce the history of VFI algorithms’ development, the evaluation metrics, and publicly available datasets. We then compare each algorithm in detail, point out their advantages and disadvantages, and compare their interpolation performance and speed on different remarkable datasets. VFI technology has drawn continuous attention in the CV community, some video processing applications based on VFI are also mentioned in this survey, such as slow-motion generation, video compression, video restoration. Finally, we outline the bottleneck faced by the current video frame interpolation technology and discuss future research work.
Fuzzing Configurations of Program Options - RCR Report
Authors: Zhang Zenong , Klees George , Wang Eric , Hicks Michael , Wei Shiyi
Published: January 2023

This artifact contains the source code and instructions to reproduce the evaluation results of the article “Fuzzing Configurations of Program Options.” The source code includes the configuration grammars for six target programs, the scripts to generate configuration stubs, and the scripts to post-process fuzzing results. The README of the artifact includes the steps to prepare the experimental environment on a clean Ubuntu machine and step-by-step commands to reproduce the evaluation experiments. A VirtualBox image with ConfigFuzz properly set up is also included.
Data-driven Digital Lighting Design for Residential Indoor Spaces
Authors: Ren Haocheng , Fan Hangming , Wang Rui , Huo Yuchi , Tang Rui , Wang Lei , Bao Hujun
Published: January 2023

Conventionally, interior lighting design is technically complex yet challenging and requires professional knowledge and aesthetic disciplines of designers. This article presents a new digital lighting design framework for virtual interior scenes, which allows novice users to automatically obtain lighting layouts and interior rendering images with visually pleasing lighting effects. The proposed framework utilizes neural networks to retrieve and learn underlying design guidelines and the principles beneath the existing lighting designs, e.g., a newly constructed dataset of 6k 3D interior scenes from professional designers with dense annotations of lights. With a 3D furniture-populated indoor scene as the input, the framework takes two stages to perform lighting design: (1) lights are iteratively placed in the room; (2) the colors and intensities of the lights are optimized by an adversarial scheme, resulting in lighting designs with aesthetic lighting effects. Quantitative and qualitative experiments show that the proposed framework effectively learns the guidelines and principles and generates lighting designs that are preferred over the rule-based baseline and comparable to those of professional human designers.
A Survey on Measuring Cognitive Workload in Human-Computer Interaction
Authors: Kosch Thomas , Karolus Jakob , Zagermann Johannes , Reiterer Harald , Schmidt Albrecht , Woźniak Paweł W.
Published: January 2023

The ever-increasing number of computing devices around us results in more and more systems competing for our attention, making cognitive workload a crucial factor for the user experience of human-computer interfaces. Research in
Human-Computer Interaction (HCI)
has used various metrics to determine users’ mental demands. However, there needs to be a systematic way to choose an appropriate and effective measure for cognitive workload in experimental setups, posing a challenge to their reproducibility. We present a literature survey of past and current metrics for cognitive workload used throughout HCI literature to address this challenge. By initially exploring what cognitive workload resembles in the HCI context, we derive a categorization supporting researchers and practitioners in selecting cognitive workload metrics for system design and evaluation. We conclude with three following research gaps: (1) defining and interpreting cognitive workload in HCI, (2) the hidden cost of the NASA-TLX, and (3) HCI research as a catalyst for workload-aware systems, highlighting that HCI research has to deepen and conceptualize the understanding of cognitive workload in the context of interactive computing systems.
Enhancing Multi-View Smoothness for Sequential Recommendation Models
Authors: Zhou Kun , Wang Hui , Wen Ji-rong , Zhao Wayne Xin
Published: January 2023

Sequential recommendation models aim to predict the interested items to a user based on his historical behaviors. To train sequential recommenders, implicit feedback data is widely adopted since it is easier to obtain than explicit feedback data. In the setting of implicit feedback, a user’s historical behaviors can be characterized as a chronologically ordered sequence of interacted items. From a perspective of machine learning, the historical interaction sequence and the recommended items can be considered as
context
and
label
, respectively, which are usually in one-hot representations in the recommendation models.

However, due to the discrete nature, one-hot representations are hard to sufficiently reflect the underlying user preference, and might also contain noise from implicit feedback that will mislead the model training. To solve these issues, we propose a general optimization framework, Multi-View Smoothness (MVS), to enhance the smoothness of sequential recommendation models in both data representations and model learning. Specifically, with the help of a complementary model, we smooth and enrich the one-hot representations of contexts and labels to better depict the underlying user preference (i.e., context smoothness and label smoothness), and devise a model regularization strategy to enforce the neighborhood smoothness of the model itself (i.e., model smoothness). Based on these strategies, we design three regularizers to constrain and improve the training of sequential recommendation models. Extensive experiments on five datasets show that our approach is able to improve the performance of various base models consistently and outperform other regularization training methods.
Analytical Placement with 3D Poisson’s Equation and ADMM-based Optimization for Large-scale 2.5D Heterogeneous FPGAs
Authors: Wei Min , Tong Xingyu , Wen Yuan , Chen Jianli , Yu Jun , Zhu Wenxing , Chang Yao-Wen
Published: January 2023

As design complexity keeps increasing, the 2.5D field-programmable gate array (FPGA) with large logic capacity has become popular in modern circuit applications. A 2.5D FPGA consists of multiple dies connected through super long lines (SLLs) on an interposer. Each die contains heterogeneous logic blocks and ASIC-like clocking architectures to achieve better skew and timing. Existing works consider these problems separately and thus may lead to serious timing issues or routing failure. This article presents an analytical placement algorithm for the 2.5D FPGA to simultaneously minimize the number of inter-die SLL signals and intra-die clocking violations. Using a lifting dimension technique, we first formulate the 2.5D global placement problem as a three-dimensional continuous and differential minimization problem, where the SLL-aware block distribution is modeled by 3D Poisson’s equation and directly solved to obtain an analytical solution. Then, we further reformulate the minimization problem as a separable optimization problem with linear constraints. Based on the proximal alternating direction method of multipliers optimization method, we efficiently optimize the separable subproblems one by one in an alternating fashion. Finally, clock-aware legalization and detailed placement are applied to legalize and improve our placement results. Compared with the state-of-the-art works, experimental results show that our algorithm can resolve all clocking constraints and reduce the number of SLL crossing signals by 36.9% with similar wirelength in a comparable running time.
Letter from the Chair
Authors: Murdock Vanessa
Published: January 2023

Greetings SIGIR Members! I am pleased to be writing my first letter as SIGIR Chair, serving with
Ryen White
(Vice Chair),
Carsten Eickhoff
(Treasurer), and
Laura Dietz
(Secretary), under the patient guidance of
Ben Carterette
(Past Chair). I would like to sincerely thank the previous committee: in addition to
Ben, Tetsuya Sakai
(Vice Chair),
Claudia Hauff
(Secretary),
Min Zhang
(Treasurer), and
Diane Kelly
(Past Chair) for the many initiatives they accomplished during their tenure. Their term started with SIGIR in Paris, in a record 42-degree heat, followed by an extremely challenging and unexpected shift to online conferences due to the global COVID pandemic. In addition to providing guidance to conference organizers, and funding for student travel and other programs, they initiated the SIGIR Academy to recognize sustained contributions to the field (thank you to
Ryen White, Hannah Bast,
and
Gianluca Demartini
), the Early Career Researchers Award (thank you to
Johanne Trippas
), and the DEI checklist (thank you to
Bárbara Poblete, Hussein Suleman
and
Suzan Verberne
). Finally, their term welcomed the creation of a new conference (SIGIR-AP) which will be held in November/December in the Asia-Pacific, with a steering committee chaired by
Alistair Moffat
and
Yiqun Liu.
These programs represent big improvements to the recognition and representation in the SIGIR community.
Offline Evaluation for Reinforcement Learning-Based Recommendation
Authors: Deffayet Romain , Thonet Thibaut , Renders Jean-Michel , de Rijke Maarten
Published: January 2023

In this paper, we argue that the paradigm commonly adopted for offline evaluation of sequential recommender systems is unsuitable for evaluating reinforcement learning-based recommenders. We find that most of the existing offline evaluation practices for reinforcement learning-based recommendation are based on a
next-item prediction
protocol, and detail three shortcomings of such an evaluation protocol. Notably, it cannot reflect the potential benefits that reinforcement learning (RL) is expected to bring while it hides critical deficiencies of certain offline RL agents. Our suggestions for alternative ways to evaluate RL-based recommender systems aim to shed light on the existing possibilities and inspire future research on reliable evaluation protocols.
Intelligent Conversational Agents for Ambient Computing
Authors: Sarikaya Ruhi
Published: January 2023

We are in the midst of an AI revolution. Three primary disruptive changes set off this revolution: 1) increase in compute power, mobile internet, and advances in deep learning. The next decade is expected to be about the proliferation of Internet-of-Things (IoT) devices and sensors, which will generate exponentially larger amounts of data to reason over and pave the way for ambient computing. This will also give rise to new forms of interaction patterns with these systems. Users will have to interact with these systems under increasingly richer context and in real-time. Conversational AI has a critical role to play in this revolution, but only if it delivers on its promise of enabling natural, frictionless, and personalized interactions in any context the user is in, while hiding the complexity of these systems through ambient intelligence. However, current commercial conversational AI systems are trained primarily with a supervised learning paradigm, which is difficult, if not impossible, to scale by manually annotating data for increasingly complex sets of contextual conditions. Inherent ambiguity in natural language further complicates the problem. We need to devise new forms of learning paradigms and frameworks that will scale to this complexity. In this talk, we present some early steps we are taking with Alexa, Amazon's Conversational AI system, to move from supervised learning to self-learning methods, where the AI relies on customer interactions for supervision in our journey to ambient intelligence.

Date:
14 July 2022.
Report on the 2nd Joint Conference of the Information Retrieval Communities in Europe (CIRCLE 2022)
Authors: Tamine Lynda , Amigó Enrique , Mothe Josiane
Published: January 2023

The Joint Conference of the Information Retrieval Communities in Europe (CIRCLE 2020) is the second joint conference of the French, Italian, and Spanish information retrieval communities. The three days of conference gathered interesting studies and research work on a wide range of topics on information retrieval, such as topic and document modeling, web search, information retrieval in e-government, social media, recommender systems, information retrieval evaluation, indexing and annotation, user profiling and interaction, frameworks and systems, and semantic extraction.

It was hosted by Université de Toulouse, France in a holiday resort at Samatan.

Date:
4--7 July, 2022.

Website:
https://www.irit.fr/CIRCLE/.
Report on the SIGIR 2022 Session on Women in IR (WIR)
Authors: Goharian Nazli , Hasibi Faegheh , Maistro Maria , Verberne Suzan
Published: January 2023

The SIGIR 2022 Women in IR event, organized by SIGIR WIR,
1
took place on July 12 in Madrid, Spain and was attended by close to 100 participants, mostly in-person. This year's theme was
"Women in Leadership Roles"
, motivated by an interest in our community. Four speakers, covering academia, industry, and entrepreneurship were invited, who shared their experiences.

Date:
12 July, 2022.

Website:
https://sigir.org/women-in-ir/sigir2022.html.
Report on the 1st Workshop on Measuring the Quality of Explanations in Recommender Systems (QUARE 2022) at SIGIR 2022
Authors: Piscopo Alessandro , Inel Oana , Vrijenhoek Sanne , Millecamp Martijn , Balog Krisztian
Published: January 2023

Explainable recommenders are systems that explain why an item is recommended, in addition to suggesting relevant items to the users of the system. Although explanations are known to be able to significantly affect a user's decision-making process, significant gaps remain concerning methodologies to evaluate them. This hinders cross-comparison between explainable recommendation approaches and is one of the issues hampering the widespread adoption of explanations in industry settings. The goal of QUARE '22 was to promote discussion upon future research and practice directions around evaluation methodologies for explanations in recommender systems. To that end, we brought together researchers and practitioners from academia and industry in a half-day event, co-located with SIGIR 2022. The workshop's program included two keynote talks, three sessions of technical paper presentations in the form of lightning talks followed by panel discussions, and a final plenary discussion session. Although the area of explanations for recommender systems is still in its early stages, QUARE saw the participation of researchers and practitioners from several fields, laying the groundwork for the creation of a community around this topic and indicating promising directions for future research and development.

Date:
15 July, 2022.

Website:
https://sites.google.com/view/quare-2022/home.
Cryo-Electron Tomography: The Resolution Revolution and a Surge of In Situ Virological Discoveries
Authors: Hong Ye , Song Yutong , Zhang Zheyuan , Li Sai
Published: January 2023

The recent proliferation of cryo-electron tomography (cryo-ET) techniques has led to the cryo-ET resolution revolution. Meanwhile, significant efforts have been made to improve the identification of targets in the cellular context and the throughput of cryo-focused ion beam (FIB) milling. Together, these developments led to a surge of in situ discoveries on how enveloped viruses are assembled and how viruses interact with cells in infected hosts. In this article, we review the recent advances in cryo-ET, high-resolution insights into virus assembly, and the findings from inside infected eukaryotic and prokaryotic cells.
Loss-of-function KCa2.2 mutations abolish channel activity
Authors: Nam Young-Woo , Rahman Mohammad Asikur , Yang Grace , Orfali Razan , Cui Meng , Zhang Miao
Published: January 2023

Small-conductance Ca2+-activated potassium channels subtype 2 (KCa2.2, also called SK2) are operated exclusively by a Ca2+-calmodulin gating mechanism. Heterozygous genetic mutations of KCa2.2 channels have been associated with autosomal dominant neurodevelopmental disorders including cerebellar ataxia and tremor in humans and rodents. Taking advantage of these pathogenic mutations, we performed structure-function studies of the rat KCa2.2 channel. No measurable current was detected from HEK293 cells heterologously expressing these pathogenic KCa2.2 mutants. When coexpressed with the KCa2.2_WT channel, mutations of the pore-lining amino acid residues (I360M, Y362C, G363S, and I389V) and two proline substitutions (L174P and L433P) dominant negatively suppressed and completely abolished the activity of the coexpressed KCa2.2_WT channel. Coexpression of the KCa2.2_I289N and the KCa2.2_WT channels reduced the apparent Ca2+ sensitivity compared with the KCa2.2_WT channel, which was rescued by a KCa2.2 positive modulator.
The SARS-CoV-2 spike S1 protein induces global proteomic changes in ATII-like rat L2 cells that are attenuated by hyaluronan
Authors: Mobley James A. , Molyvdas Adam , Kojima Kyoko , Ahmad Israr , Jilling Tamas , Li Jian-Liang , Garantziotis Stavros , Matalon Sadis
Published: January 2023

The COVID-19 pandemic continues to impose a major impact on global health and economy since its identification in early 2020, causing significant morbidity and mortality worldwide. Caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus, along with a growing number of variants, COVID-19 has led to 651,918,402 confirmed cases and 6,656,601 deaths worldwide (as of December 27, 2022; https://covid19.who.int/ ). Despite advances in our understanding of COVID-19 pathogenesis, the precise mechanism by which SARS-CoV2 causes epithelial injury is incompletely understood. In this current study, robust application of global-discovery proteomics identified highly significant induced changes by the Spike S1 protein of SARS-CoV-2 in the proteome of alveolar type II (ATII)-like rat L2 cells that lack ACE2 receptors. Systems biology analysis revealed that the S1-induced proteomics changes were associated with three significant network hubs: E2F1, CREB1/RelA, and ROCK2/RhoA. We also found that pretreatment of L2 cells with high molecular weight hyaluronan (HMW-HA) greatly attenuated the S1 effects on the proteome. Western blotting analysis and cell cycle measurements confirmed the S1 upregulation of E2F1 and ROCK2/RhoA in L2 cells and the protective effects of HMW-HA. Taken as a whole, our studies revealed profound and novel biological changes that contribute to our current understanding of both S1 and hyaluronan biology. These data show that the S1 protein may contribute to epithelial injury induced by SARS-CoV-2. In addition, our work supports the potential benefit of HMW-HA in ameliorating SARS CoV-2-induced cell injury.
Adrenergic control of skeletal muscle blood flow during chronic hypoxia in healthy males
Authors: Simpson Lydia L. , Hansen Alexander B. , Moralez Gilbert , Amin Sachin B. , Hofstaetter Florian , Gasho Christopher , Stembridge Mike , Dawkins Tony G. , Tymko Michael M. , Ainslie Philip N. , Lawley Justin S. , Hearon Christopher M.
Published: January 2023

Sympathetic transduction is reduced following chronic high-altitude (HA) exposure; however, vascular α-adrenergic signaling, the primary mechanism mediating sympathetic vasoconstriction at sea level (SL), has not been examined at HA. In nine male lowlanders, we measured forearm blood flow (Doppler ultrasound) and calculated changes in vascular conductance (ΔFVC) during 1) incremental intra-arterial infusion of phenylephrine to assess α1-adrenergic receptor responsiveness and 2) combined intra-arterial infusion of β-adrenergic and α-adrenergic antagonists propranolol and phentolamine (α-β-blockade) to assess adrenergic vascular restraint at rest and during exercise-induced sympathoexcitation (cycling; 60% peak power). Experiments were performed near SL (344 m) and after 3 wk at HA (4,383 m). HA abolished the vasoconstrictor response to low-dose phenylephrine (ΔFVC: SL: −34 ± 15%, vs. HA; +3 ± 18%; P < 0.0001) and markedly attenuated the response to medium (ΔFVC: SL: −45 ± 18% vs. HA: −28 ± 11%; P = 0.009) and high (ΔFVC: SL: −47 ± 20%, vs. HA: −35 ± 20%; P = 0.041) doses. Blockade of β-adrenergic receptors alone had no effect on resting FVC ( P = 0.500) and combined α-β-blockade induced a similar vasodilatory response at SL and HA ( P = 0.580). Forearm vasoconstriction during cycling was not different at SL and HA ( P = 0.999). Interestingly, cycling-induced forearm vasoconstriction was attenuated by α-β-blockade at SL (ΔFVC: Control: −27 ± 128 vs. α-β-blockade: +19 ± 23%; P = 0.0004), but unaffected at HA (ΔFVC: Control: −20 ± 22 vs. α-β-blockade: −23 ± 11%; P = 0.999). Our results indicate that in healthy males, altitude acclimatization attenuates α1-adrenergic receptor responsiveness; however, resting α-adrenergic restraint remains intact, due to concurrent resting sympathoexcitation. Furthermore, forearm vasoconstrictor responses to cycling are preserved, although the contribution of adrenergic receptors is diminished, indicating a reliance on alternative vasoconstrictor mechanisms.
Fresh Azolla, Azolla pinnata as a Complementary Feed for Oreochromis niloticus: Growth, Digestive Enzymes, Intestinal Morphology, Physiological Responses, and Flesh Quality
Authors: Refaey Mohamed M. , Mehrim Ahmed I. , Zenhom Osama A. , Areda Hamada A. , Ragaza Janice A. , Hassaan Mohamed S.
Published: January 2023

Azolla is a potential fish feed ingredient due to its high nutritional value, abundant production, and low price. This study is aimed at evaluating the use of fresh green azolla (FGA) as a replacement ratio of the daily feed intake on the growth, digestive enzymes, hematobiochemical indices, antioxidant response, intestinal histology, body composition, and flesh quality of monosex Nile tilapia, Oreochromis niloticus (with an average initial weight of108.0±5.0 g). Five experimental groups were used and differed in commercial feed replacement rates of 0% (T0), 10% (T1), 20% (T2), 30% (T3), and 40% (T4) with FGA for 70 days. Results showed that 20% replacement with azolla gave the highest values of growth performance and hematological parameters and the best feed conversion ratio, protein efficiency ratio, and fish whole body protein content. The highest levels of intestinal chymotrypsin, trypsin, lipase, and amylase were noted in 20% replacement with azolla. Fish fed diets with FGA levels of 10% and 40% showed the highest values for the thickness of the mucosa and submucosa layers among all treatments, respectively, while the length and width of the villi decreased significantly. No significant (P>0.05) differences in the activities of serum alanine transaminase, aspartate transaminase, and creatinine were detected among treatments. The hepatic total antioxidant capacity and the activities of catalase and superoxide dismutase significantly (P<0.05) increased while the activity of malonaldehyde decreased with increasing the replacement levels of FGA up to 20%. With increasing levels of dietary replacement with FGA, muscular pH, stored loss (%), and frozen leakage rate (%) were significantly decreased. Finally, it was concluded that the dietary replacement of 20% FGA or less may be considered a promising feeding protocol for monosex Nile tilapia, which may lead to high fish growth, quality, profitability, and sustainability for the tilapia production sector.
Occupational Disease and Injury in Malaysia: A Thematic Review of Literature from 2016 to 2021
Authors: Awaluddin S. Maria , Mahjom Maznieda , Lim Kuang Kuay , Shawaluddin Noor Syaqilah , Tuan Lah Tuan Mohd Amin
Published: January 2023

Introduction. Working people are exposed to occupational hazards and are at risk of having occupational disease or injury in a rapidly industrializing country like Malaysia. This study aims to review and summarize the occupational disease and injury in Malaysia from 2016 to 2021. Methods. This study used PubMed and Scopus databases to conduct a systematic literature search using a set of keywords. The selected records dated from 1 January 2016 to 8 September 2021 were extracted into the Mendeley Desktop and ATLAS.ti 8 software. Systematic screening was conducted by two independent researchers and finalized by the third researcher. Data were coded and grouped according to the themes. The results were presented as the table for descriptive analysis and cross-tabulation between the themes. Results. A total of 120 records were included in this study. Under the theme of main health problems, the findings showed that mental health, infectious disease, and work-related musculoskeletal disorders are the top three problems being discussed in the literature for the working people in Malaysia. The findings also showed an increasing trend of mental health problems during pandemic COVID-19 years. In addition, hospital was the highest workplace where the occupational health problems were reported.Discussion/Conclusion. There was substantial work on the mental health problem, infectious diseases, and work-related musculoskeletal disorders as the main health problem among workers in Malaysia in the past five years. The employers must report any occupational health and injury case to the authority and prompt intervention can be initiated.
Professional Quality of Life, Work-Related Stress, and Job Satisfaction among Nurses in Saudi Arabia: A Structural Equation Modelling Approach
Authors: Shdaifat Emad , Al-Shdayfat Noha , Al-Ansari Najla
Published: January 2023

Objective. To examine the interrelated impacts of work-related stress, compassion satisfaction (CS), and job satisfaction on burnout (BO) and secondary traumatic stress (STS) among nurses using structural equation modelling (SEM). Methods. A cross-sectional design was used to survey 727 nurses at a teaching hospital in eastern Saudi Arabia. Three scales were used: the Quality of Life (ProQOL) scale, the Nursing Stress Scale (NSS), and the Job Satisfaction Survey (JSS). Data were analysed using SPSS and Analysis of Moment Structures (AMOS), and SEM analysis was conducted to confirm the interrelations among variables. Results. The final model had a good fit for the obtained data (X2 = 2.726, RMSEA = 0.032). Stress is directly related to BO and STS, and the following variables were directly related to STS: job satisfaction, BO, and CS. Lastly, BO mediated the relationship between stress and STS. Conclusion. It is crucial to analyze the effect of stress, CS, and job satisfaction which seems to have a positive and negative impact on nurses’ BO and STS. Therefore, implementing a management strategy to manage stress and satisfaction can enhance nurses’ quality of life, support the maintenance of positive attitudes, and enhance the standard of patient care.
What Is the Internet Water Army? A Practical Feature-Based Detection of Large-Scale Fake Reviews
Authors: Guo Bo , Jiang Zhi-bin
Published: January 2023

Information is passed by word-of-mouth figures prominently when consumers evaluate products through reviews. However, severe logistical problems are caused by the internet’s Water Army (i.e., literally people who are hired by individuals or organizations to compose false reviews), that flood the internet e-commerce websites. An array of internet e-commerce sites is flooded with inauthentic information, and false reviews are used to maliciously induce consumers to purchase specific products, that often contain some defects. Notwithstanding the fact that the internet Water Army first manifested in China, it can also exist in other countries. The rationale lies in the high profitability possible, in the minds of numerous organized underground paid poster groups, and in writing fake reviews to misinform consumers. It has become an increasingly daunting task to precisely spot the Water Army members, who often alter their writing style and posted content. In this paper, the authors devise a comprehensive set of features to characterize all users and compare the paid posters against the normal users on different dimensions; furthermore, an ensemble detection model equipped with seven disparate algorithms is put into place. Our model reached a score of 0.730 in the AUC measure, 0.691 in the F1 measure on the JD dataset, 0.926 in the AUC measure, and 0.871 in the F1 measure on the Amazon dataset, which outshines the measures in the existing research. The significance and contribution of this work are in advancing constructive solutions and recommendations for this major concern of the entire e-commerce industry.
Distinct Prognostic and Immunological Roles of ETS1 and ETS2: A Pan‐Cancer Analysis
Authors: Ren Yajun , Chen Bing , Zhang Meng
Published: January 2023

Objective. ETS1 and ETS2, the main ETS family of transcription factors, have been found to act as downstream effectors of the RAS/MAPK pathway. This study explores the expression and prognostic values of ETS1 and ETS2 across cancers. We also aimed to explore the significance of ETS1 and ETS2 expression in normal immune cells with relation to tumorigenesis. Methods. The expression of ETS1 and ETS2 was examined in the HPA and GEPIA2 databases. The KM plotter was applied to examine prognostic value of ETS1 and ETS2. Correlation between ETS1/ETS2 and infiltrating immune cells and immune checkpoints was assessed using TIMER2.0. The mutation landscape of ETS1/ETS2 was explored using the cBioPortal. STRING and GEPIA2 were used to screen ETS1/ETS2 binding and correlated genes. Enrichr was applied to perform GO and KEGG enrichment analyses. Results. ETS1 showed enhanced expression in lymphoid tissue, while ETS2 showed low tissue specificity. ETS1 was increased in 12 and decreased in 6 cancers, while ETS2 was increased in 4 and decreased in 13 cancers. Both ETS1 and ETS2 were favorable prognostic markers in LIHC and KIRC, while they showed different prognostic roles in more cancers. ETS1 showed stronger correlation with several infiltrating immune cells and immune checkpoints compared with ETS2. Both ETS1 and ETS2 harbored low mutation ratio. ETS1 interacting and correlated genes were enriched in GO terms in response to cadmium ion and response to oxidative stress, while those of ETS2 were enriched in transcription regulation. Conclusion. ETS1 and ETS2 showed different patterns in expression, prognostic values, correlation with immune infiltrating, and immune checkpoints. ETS1 and ETS2 play distinct roles across cancer.
Exploring the Anticonvulsant Activity of Aqueous Extracts of Ficus benjamina L. Figs in Experimentally Induced Convulsions
Authors: Singh Rajinder , Khalid Mohammad , Batra Nikhil , Biswas Partha , Singh Lovedeep , Bhatti Rajbir
Published: January 2023

Background. Ficus benjamina L. is an evergreen tree, native to Southeast Asia, and often known as a weeping fig. Its latex and fruit extracts are used by indigenous cultures to cure skin conditions, inflammation, vomiting, leprosy, malaria, and nasal ailments. The aqueous extract of the figs of Ficus benjamina L. has various therapeutic values, including biological activities on the central nervous system. Materials and Methods. The extract of the dried figs of Ficus benjamina L. (FBE) was prepared by defatting with petroleum ether for 16 h followed by soxhelation with 70% methanol (1 : 10 w/v) for 24 h, and standardization of the extract was carried out using HPLC with 5-HT as a standard. Electroconvulsions were induced by the maximal electroshock model, and chemoconvulsions were induced by picrotoxin. Results. The HPLC chromatogram of the Ficus benjamina L. extract showed an absorption peak with a retention time of 1.797 min, similar to that observed with standard serotonin (5-HT) solution. In the maximal electroshock model, FBE significantly reduced the duration of the tonic hind limb extensor and extensor-to-flexor ratio (E/F ratio) in a dose-dependent manner. Moreover, in the picrotoxin-induced seizure model, FBE increased the seizure latency and decreased the duration of tonic-clonic convulsions dose-dependently. We confirmed the anticonvulsant activity of the FBE extract as it attenuated both maximal electroshock and picrotoxin-induced convulsions. Conclusion. The in vivo studies revealed that the Ficus extract was found to protect the animals in electroshock-induced and picrotoxin-induced convulsions.
Improved Antitumor Effect of NK Cells Activated by Neutrophils in a Bone Marrow Transplant Model
Authors: Nakato Daisuke , Iwamoto Shotaro , Amano Keishiro , Ito Takahiro , Toyoda Hidemi , Hanaki Ryo , Morimoto Mari , Niwa Kaori , Tawara Isao , Imanaka-Yoshida Kyoko , Ogawa Masahiro , Hirayama Masahiro
Published: January 2023

The licensing process mediated by inhibitory receptors of the Ly49 C-type lectin superfamily that recognizes self-major histocompatibility complex (MHC) class I in mice is essential for the proper antitumor function of natural killer (NK) cells. Several models for NK cell licensing can be exploited for adoptive immunotherapy for cancer. However, the appropriate adoptive transfer setting to induce efficient graft versus tumor/leukemia effects remains elusive, especially after hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT). In our previous experiment, we showed that intraperitoneal neutrophil administration with their corresponding NK receptor ligand-activated NK cells using congenic mice without HSCT. In this experiment, we demonstrate enhanced antitumor effects of licensed NK cells induced by weekly intraperitoneal injections of irradiated neutrophil-enriched peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMNCs) in recipient mice bearing lymphoma. Bone marrow transplantation was performed using BALB/c mice (H-2d) as the recipient and B10 mice (H-2b) as the donor. The tumor was A20, a BALB/c-derived lymphoma cell line, which was injected subcutaneously into the recipient at the same time as the HSCT. Acute graft versus host disease was not exacerbated in this murine MHC class I mismatched HSCT setting. The intraperitoneal injection of PBMNCs activated a transient licensing of NK subsets expressed Ly49G2, its corresponding NK receptor ligand to H-2d, and reduced A20 tumor growth in the recipient after HSCT. Pathological examination revealed that increased donor-oriented NK1.1+NK cells migrated into the recipient tumors, depending on neutrophil counts in the administered PBMNCs. Collectively, our data reveal a pivotal role of neutrophils in promoting NK cell effector functions and adoptive immunotherapy for cancer.
The Response of Sensitive LULC Changes to Runoff and Sediment Yield in a Semihumid Urban Watershed of the Upper Awash Subbasin Using the SWAT+ Model, Oromia, Ethiopia
Authors: Chelkeba Tumsa Bekan
Published: January 2023

Land use and land cover (LULC) changes in many parts of river basins have caused water shortages, flood risks, land degradation, soil loss, biodiversity loss, and ecosystem deterioration. LULC change and topography are the main factors that cause land degradation and soil erosion in the Ethiopian highlands. The aim was to evaluate the rate of the LULC change and its effects on runoff and sediment yield in the semihumid subtropical Awash watershed using the SWAT + model. The land use maps of 2000, 2010, and 2020, along with constant climate data from 1992 to 2020, were used to investigate the effects of LULC dynamics on runoff and sediment yields. Agriculture and urbanization both increased at 7.1% and 7.95%, respectively. In contrast, the forest area decreased by 8.8% and shrubland by 3.25% from 2000 to 2020. Bare soil and urban areas covered the majority of the landscape units that were labeled as potential runoff generators. The majority of the soil erosion-prone areas that were classified as severe in the second and third scenarios covered a sizable area of urban, agricultural, and shrubland. These soil erosion hotspots covered an area of 3,777.3 ha (3.18%) and 13,413.1 ha (11.3%), with a total annual sediment yield of 361.93 m/ton and 1239.24 m/ton, respectively. In general, the change in LULC results in the annual sediment yield, with mean annual amounts of 241.8 tons/ha, 408.7 tons/ha, and 732.4 tons/ha for each scenario in the sequence. The model performance was tested using R2 = 0.88, NSE = 0.9, and PBIAS = −2.36, which indicate good agreement between simulated and observed flow, and R2 = 0.82, NSE = 0.86, and PBIAS = 4.38 for the simulated against recorded sediment yield. The increases in sediment yields have serious implications for reservoir siltation downstream of the watershed and warn land use managers to take action.
TZEAMM: An Efficient and Secure Active Measurement Method Based on TrustZone
Authors: Liu Xiaoqing , Lai Yingxu , Liu Jing , Luo Shiyao
Published: January 2023

With the rapid development of computer and communication technology, embedded systems are widely used in smart devices. The increasing connectivity of these systems and the difficulties in providing comprehensive security have made such devices vulnerable to malicious attacks. Passive defense technologies and traffic-based intrusion detection technologies are not fully effective against such attacks. Trusted execution environment (TEE) technology can ensure system security against unknown attacks to some extent. Most researchers use TrustZone to implement TEE. However, the problem is that the API interface of the TEE module which provides the service is not secure. Therefore, to actively defend against attacks, we developed a trusted computing active measurement architecture based on TrustZone. To overcome the serious problem that modules in the trusted execution environment need to be passively invoked to provide services, we have proposed an active measurement closed-loop immune mechanism. To reduce the trusted computing base and reduce the performance overhead, we removed certain functional modules from the trusted execution environment. In addition, based on this architecture, we developed a trust chain and dynamic measurement method to ensure the security of the target applications. We changed the traditional attack response method, which requires the entire system to be restarted after an attack, by developing a fallback mechanism that is more suitable for the system. Finally, we verified the effectiveness of the architecture by developing an attack model. Performance testing and analysis showed that the architecture reduced the impact of the security mechanisms on the system. In the future, we will extend our research to more fine-grained measurements.
[Retracted] Developing an Efficient Cancer Detection and Prediction Tool Using Convolution Neural Network Integrated with Neural Pattern Recognition
Authors: Gangurde Roshan , Jagota Vishal , Khan Mohammad Shahbaz , Sakthi Viji Siva , Boppana Udaya Mouni , Osei Bernard , Kishore Kakarla Hari
Published: January 2023

The application of computational approaches in medical science for diagnosis is made possible by the development in technical advancements connected to computer and biological sciences. The current cancer diagnosis system is becoming outmoded due to the new and rapid growth in cancer cases, and new, effective, and efficient methodologies are now required. Accurate cancer‐type prediction is essential for cancer diagnosis and treatment. Understanding, diagnosing, and identifying the various types of cancer can be greatly aided by knowledge of the cancer genes. The Convolution Neural Network (CNN) and neural pattern recognition (NPR) approaches are used in this study paper to detect and predict the type of cancer. Different Convolution Neural Networks (CNNs) have been proposed by various researchers up to this point. Each model concentrated on a certain set of parameters to simulate the expression of genes. We have developed a novel CNN‐NPR architecture that predicts cancer type while accounting for the tissue of origin using high‐dimensional gene expression inputs. The 5000‐person sample of the 1‐D CNN integrated with NPR is trained and tested on the gene profile, mapping with various cancer kinds. The proposed model’s accuracy of 94% suggests that the suggested combination may be useful for long‐term cancer diagnosis and detection. Fewer parameters are required for the suggested model to be efficiently trained before prediction.
Epimedii Folium and Ligustri Lucidi Fructus Promote Osteoblastogenesis and Inhibit Osteoclastogenesis against Osteoporosis via Acting on Osteoblast-Osteoclast Communication
Authors: Ma Zitong , Tang Xiufeng , Chen Yuheng , Wang Han , Li Yuman , Long Yuting , Liu Renhui
Published: January 2023

Osteoblast (OB) and osteoclast (OC) play important roles in bone formation and bone resorption, which can communicate with each other through cytokine paracrine. Previous studies have confirmed that Epimedii Folium (EF) and Ligustri Lucidi Fructus (LLF) used alone or in combination can treat osteoporosis (OP) through regulating bone remodeling, but the effects of EF and LLF on osteoblastogenesis, osteoclastogenesis, and OB-OC communication are unclear. In this study, we investigated the direct and indirect effects of EF and LLF on OBs and OCs via monoculture and coculture (transwell) models of OBs and OCs. We found that the combination of EF and LLF (EF&LLF) could promote osteoblastogenesis and inhibit osteoclastogenesis directly and indirectly. In order to study the mechanisms of EF&LLF on indirectly regulating osteoblastogenesis and osteoclastogenesis, we detected the expression of cytokines by which OBs and OCs could communicate with each other. We found that EF&LLF could downregulate the expression of RANKL and M-CSF and the protein ratio of RANKL/OPG of OBs and Atp6v0d2 expression of OCs and upregulate the expression of OPG and TGF-β1 of OBs and the expression of TGF-β1, BMP-2, and IGF-1 of OCs, indicating that EF&LLF could regulate cytokine expressions of OBs/OCs to affect OB-OC communication. In addition, EF&LLF had a better effect on regulating cytokines of OBs and OCs than EF or LLF in single use. This study suggested that EF&LLF exhibited the effects of promoting osteoblastogenesis and inhibiting osteoclastogenesis via acting on OB-OC communication and provided some scientific evidences for EF&LLF against OP.
First-Principles Study of the Quasi-Particle and Excitonic Effect in o-BC2N: The GW + BSE Study
Authors: Aga Genene Shiferaw , Singh Pooran , Geffe Chernet Amente
Published: January 2023

Ternary boron-carbon-nitride compounds are the hardest, chemically stable, and most applicable semiconductors in optoelectronic devices. We investigate the quasi-particle and excitonic properties of type II o-BC2N using many-body perturbation theory (MBPT). The state-of-the-art GW and BSE methods were used to determine the accurate band gap and excited-state characteristics of this material. We simulate the convergence test and structural optimization in DFT, which is the starting point for the GW calculation. We also compute the convergence test of the parameters in GW and BSE. As a result, the bandgap of our system is found to be 2.31 eV and 1.95 eV using the GW approximation and DFT-PBE, respectively. Since the valence and conduction band edges are located at different Brillouin zones, we decide that o-BC2N is an indirect bandgap semiconductor. In addition, by applying the scissor operator, we corrected the quasi-particle bandgap, which shows almost the same result as the GW approximation. Furthermore, using the BSE algorithm, we calculate the optical bandgap of type II o-BC2N to be 4.0 eV with the excitonic effect and 4.4 eV without the excitonic effect. The highest peaks of the imaginary dielectric function with the excitonic effect shift to a lower energy level at 11 eV than without the excitonic effect at 13.5 eV. The electron charge distribution is computed by fixing the hole position. Finally, we suggest that type II o-BC2N is promising for the application of optoelectronic semiconductors.