bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Examining geospatial and temporal distribution of invasive non-typhoidalSalmonelladisease occurrence in sub-Saharan Africa: a systematic review and modelling study
Authors: Kim Jong-Hoon , Tack Bieke , Fiorino Fabio , Pettini Elena , Marchello Christian S , Jacobs Jan , Crump John A , Marks Florian
Published: March 2024

Background

Invasive non-typhoidalSalmonella(iNTS) disease is a significant health concern in sub-Saharan Africa. While our knowledge of a larger-scale variation is growing, understanding of the subnational variation in iNTS disease occurrence is lacking, yet crucial for targeted intervention.

Method

We performed a systematic review of reported occurrences of iNTS disease in sub-Saharan Africa, consulting literature from PubMed, Embase and Web of Science published since 2000. Eligibility for inclusion was not limited by study type but required that studies reported original data on human iNTS diseases based on the culture of a normally sterile site, specifying subnational locations and the year, and were available as full-text articles. We excluded studies that diagnosed iNTS disease based on clinical indications, cultures from non-sterile sites or serological testing. We estimated the probability of occurrence of iNTS disease for sub-Saharan Africa on 20 km × 20 km grids by exploring the association with geospatial covariates such as malaria, HIV, childhood growth failure, access to improved water, and sanitation using a boosted regression tree.

Results

We identified 130 unique references reporting human iNTS disease in 21 countries published from 2000 through 2020. The estimated probability of iNTS occurrence grids showed significant spatial heterogeneity at all levels (20 km × 20 km grids, subnational, country and subregional levels) and temporal heterogeneity by year. For 2020, the probability of occurrence was higher in Middle Africa (0.34, 95% CI: 0.25 to 0.46), followed by Western Africa (0.33, 95% CI: 0.23 to 0.44), Eastern Africa (0.24, 95% CI: 0.17 to 0.33) and Southern Africa (0.08, 95% CI: 0.03 to 0.11). Temporal heterogeneity indicated that the probability of occurrence increased between 2000 and 2020 in countries such as the Republic of the Congo (0.05 to 0.59) and Democratic Republic of the Congo (0.10 to 0.48) whereas it decreased in countries such as Uganda (0.65 to 0.23) or Zimbabwe (0.61 to 0.37).

Conclusion

The iNTS disease occurrence varied greatly across sub-Saharan Africa, with certain regions being disproportionately affected. Exploring regions at high risk for iNTS disease, despite the limitations in our data, may inform focused resource allocation. This targeted approach may enhance efforts to combat iNTS disease in more affected areas.
How have services for diabetes, eye, hearing and foot health been integrated for adults? Protocol for a scoping review
Authors: O'Shea Claire , Manuel Alehandrea , Te Ao Braden , Silwal Pushkar Raj , Harwood Matire , Murphy Rinki , Ramke Jacqueline
Published: March 2024

Introduction

The global population is ageing, and by 2050, there will be almost 2.1 billion people over the age of 60 years. This ageing population means conditions such as diabetes are on the increase, as well as other conditions associated with ageing (and/or diabetes), including those that cause vision impairment, hearing impairment or foot problems. The aim of this scoping review is to identify the extent of the literature describing integration of services for adults of two or more of diabetes, eye, hearing or foot services.

Methods and analysis

The main database searches are of Medline and Embase, conducted by an information specialist, without language restrictions, for studies published from 1 January 2000 describing the integration of services for two or more of diabetes, eye, hearing and foot health in the private or public sector and at the primary or secondary level of care, primarily targeted to adults aged ≥40 years. A grey literature search will focus on websites of key organisations. Reference lists of all included articles will be reviewed to identify further studies. Screening and data extraction will be undertaken by two reviewers independently and any discrepancies will be resolved by discussion. We will use tables, maps and text to summarise the included studies and findings, including where studies were undertaken, which services tended to be integrated, in which sector and level of the health system, targeting which population groups and whether they were considered effective.

Ethics and dissemination

As our review will be based on published data, ethical approval will not be sought. This review is part of a project in Aotearoa New Zealand that aims to improve access to services for adults with diabetes or eye, hearing or foot conditions. The findings will be published in a peer-reviewed journal and presented at relevant conferences.
Postoperative pain and pain management following selective dorsal rhizotomy
Authors: Adams Isabel G , Jayaweera Ramanie , Lewis Jennifer , Badawi Nadia , Abdel-Latif Mohamed E , Paget Simon
Published: March 2024

Background

Selective dorsal rhizotomy (SDR) is a neurosurgical procedure that reduces lower limb spasticity, performed in some children with spastic diplegic cerebral palsy. Effective pain management after SDR is essential for early rehabilitation. This study aimed to describe the anaesthetic and early pain management, pain and adverse events in children following SDR.

Methods

This was a retrospective cohort study. Participants were all children who underwent SDR at a single Australian tertiary hospital between 2010 and 2020. Electronic medical records of all children identified were reviewed. Data collected included demographic and clinical data (pain scores, key clinical outcomes, adverse events and side effects) and medications used during anaesthesia and postoperative recovery.

Results

22 children (n=8, 36% female) had SDR. The mean (SD) age at surgery was 6 years and 6 months (1 year and 4 months). Common intraoperative medications used were remifentanil (100%), ketamine (95%), paracetamol (91%) and sevoflurane (86%). Postoperatively, all children were prescribed opioid nurse-controlled analgesia (morphine, 36%; fentanyl, 36%; and oxycodone, 18%) and concomitant ketamine infusion. Opioid doses were maximal on the day after surgery. The mean (SD) daily average pain score (Wong-Baker FACES scale) on the day after surgery was 1.4 (0.9), decreasing to 1.0 (0.5) on postoperative day 6 (POD6). Children first attended the physiotherapy gym on median day 7 (POD8, range 7–8). Most children experienced mild side effects or adverse events that were managed conservatively. Common side effects included constipation (n=19), nausea and vomiting (n=18), and pruritus (n=14). No patient required return to theatre, ICU admission or prolonged inpatient stay.

Conclusions

Most children achieve good pain management following SDR with opioid and ketamine infusions. Adverse events, while common, are typically mild and managed with medication or therapy. This information can be used as a baseline to improve postoperative care and to support families’ understanding of SDR before surgery.
Global relevance of MGRS growth standards: the case of India
Authors: Prasad Vandana , Sinha Dipa , Joseph Rohit James
Published: March 2024

The most common measures of childhood undernutrition are based on anthropometric measures such as height-for-age (stunting/chronic undernutrition) and weight-for-height (wasting/acute undernutrition). It is well recognised that the determinants of undernutrition are multiple, including food intake, dietary diversity, health, sanitation and women’s status. Currently, most countries across the world including India use the globally accepted WHO-Multicentre Growth Reference Study (MGRS) growth standards (2006) for the purposes of measurement as well as for evaluating progress on these metrics. However, there is some discussion on the universal relevance of these standards, and in the Indian context, whether these standards overestimate the prevalence of stunting, considering differences in genetic potential for growth. This is especially relevant in the context of increasing burden of obesity and non-communicable diseases in India. Based on a detailed review of literature, policy documents and expert inputs, this review paper discusses the relevance of the WHO growth standards for height/stunting, in the context of India. Issues discussed related to the MGRS methodology include pooling of data and intersite and intrasite variability, opting for standards as opposed to references, and external validity. Other issues related to plasticity of stunting and the influence of maternal heights are also discussed, in the context of analysing the appropriateness of using universal growth standards. Based on the review, it is recommended that the current standards may continue to be used until a newer global standard is established through a similar study.
Ultrasound-guided electrocoagulation of neovascularisation for persistent patellar tendinopathy in athletes: a cohort study of 25 patients with a mean follow-up of 5 years from the SANTI Study Group
Authors: Carrozzo Alessandro , Shatrov Jobe , El Helou Abdo , Pettinari Francesco , Alayane Ali , Abed Ali Ahmad , Clechet Julien , Vieira Thais Dutra , Sonnery-Cottet Bertrand
Published: March 2024

Background

Patellar tendinopathy (PT) is a common condition characterised by persistent patellar tendon pain and dysfunction, particularly in athletes. Neovascularisation is frequently observed in the PT and is associated with increased pain. Ultrasound-guided electrocoagulation of neovascularisation has emerged as a minimally invasive alternative treatment for recalcitrant PT.

Hypothesis/purpose

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the clinical outcomes of ultrasound-guided electrocoagulation of neovascularisation in athletes with persistent PT.

Study design

Case series; level of evidence, IV.

Methods

A retrospective analysis of prospectively collected data was performed on 25 athletes who underwent ultrasound-guided electrocoagulation of neovascularisation for recalcitrant PT. Clinical outcomes including complications, reinterventions and patient-reported outcome measures were recorded. Comparisons between variables were assessed using χ2test or Fisher’s exact test for categorical variables and Student’s t-test or Wilcoxon test for quantitative variables.

Results

25 patients were included in the final analysis. 96% returned to their preoperative activity level at a mean of 3.8 months. At a mean follow-up of 5 years 4% did not receive significant benefit from electrocoagulation therapy. Significant improvements were observed in outcome measures, including the Victorian Institute of Sport Assessment Questionnaire for Patients with Patellar Tendinopathy, Kujala score, modified Blazina score and Visual Analogue Scale for pain.

Conclusion

Ultrasound-guided electrocoagulation of neovascularisation for persistent PT in elite athletes resulted in a low complication rate, a high rate and rapid return to sport and a significant improvement in outcome measures.
Primary care providers practice patterns regarding female pelvic floor disorders
Authors: Weimer Anna , Hallock Jennifer L , Chen Chi Chiung Grace
Published: March 2024

Introduction

Pelvic floor disorders (PFDs) pose substantial physical and psychological burdens for a growing number of women. Given the ubiquity of these conditions and known patient reluctance to seek care, primary care providers (PCPs) have a unique opportunity to increase treatment and provide appropriate referrals for these patients.

Methods

An online survey was administered to PCPs to assess provider practices, knowledge, comfort managing and ease of referral for PFDs. Logistic regression was used to assess the association between demographic/practice characteristics of PCPs and two primary outcomes of interest: discomfort with management and difficulty with referral of PFDs.

Results

Of the 153 respondents to the survey, more felt comfortable managing stress urinary incontinence (SUI) and overactive bladder (OAB), compared with pelvic organ prolapse (POP) and faecal incontinence (FI) and were less likely to refer patients with urinary symptoms. Few providers elicited symptoms for POP and FI as compared with SUI and OAB. Provider variables that were significantly associated with discomfort with management varied by PFD, but tended to correlate with less exposure to PFDs (eg, those with fewer years of practice, and internal medicine and family physicians as compared with geriatricians); whereas the factors that were significantly associated with difficulty in referral, again varied by PFD, but were related to practice characteristics (eg, specialist network, type of practice, practice setting and quantity of patients).

Conclusion

These findings highlight the need to increase PCPs awareness of PFDs and develop effective standardised screening protocols, as well as collaboration with pelvic floor specialists to improve screening, treatment and referral for patients with PFDs.
BTN1A1 is a novel immune checkpoint mutually exclusive to PD-L1
Authors: Kim Young-Seung , Lee Seung-Hoon , Park Andrew H , Wu Chunai , Hong Bong-Ki , Jung Hyunjin , Lin Steven H , Yoo Stephen S
Published: March 2024

Background

While Programmed cell death protein 1 (PD-1)/programmed cell death-ligand 1 (PD-L1) blockade is a potent antitumor treatment strategy, it is effective in only limited subsets of patients with cancer, emphasizing the need for the identification of additional immune checkpoints. Butyrophilin 1A1 (BTN1A1) has been reported to exhibit potential immunoregulatory activity, but its ability to function as an immune checkpoint remains to be systematically assessed, and the mechanisms underlying such activity have yet to be characterized.

Methods

BTN1A1 expression was evaluated in primary tumor tissue samples, and its ability to suppress T-cell activation and T cell-dependent tumor clearance was examined. The relationship between BTN1A1 and PD-L1 expression was further characterized, followed by the development of a BTN1A1-specific antibody that was administered to tumor-bearing mice to test the amenability of this target to immune checkpoint inhibition.

Results

BTN1A1 was confirmed to suppress T-cell activation in vitro and in vivo. Robust BTN1A1 expression was detected in a range of solid tumor tissue samples, and BTN1A1 expression was mutually exclusive with that of PD-L1 as a consequence of its inhibition of Janus-activated kinase/signal transducer and activator of transcription signaling-induced PD-L1 upregulation. Antibody-mediated BTN1A1 blockade suppressed tumor growth and enhanced immune cell infiltration in syngeneic tumor-bearing mice.

Conclusion

Together, these results confirm that the potential of BTN1A1 is a bona fide immune checkpoint and a viable immunotherapeutic target for the treatment of individuals with anti-PD-1/PD-L1 refractory or resistant disease, opening new avenues to improving survival outcomes for patients with a range of cancers.
Efficacy of colchicine in addition to anakinra in patients with recurrent pericarditis
Authors: Collini Valentino , Andreis Alessandro , De Biasio Marzia , De Martino Maria , Isola Miriam , Croatto Nicole , Lepre Veronica , Cantarini Luca , Merlo Marco , Sinagra Gianfranco , Abbate Antonio , Lazaros George , Brucato Antonio , Klein Allan L , Imazio Massimo
Published: March 2024

Aim

Anakinra, an anti IL-1 agent targeting IL-1 alfa and beta, is available for the treatment of recurrent pericarditis in cases with corticosteroid dependence and colchicine resistance after failure of conventional therapies. However, it is unclear if the combination with colchicine, a non-specific inhibitor of the inflammasome targeting the same inflammatory pathway of IL-1, could provide additional benefit to prevent further recurrences. The aim of the present observational study is to assess whether the addition of colchicine on top of anakinra could prolong the time to first recurrence and prevent recurrences better than anakinra alone.

Methods

International, all-comers, multicentre, retrospective observational cohort study analysing all consecutive patients treated with anakinra for corticosteroid-dependent and colchicine-resistant recurrent pericarditis. The efficacy endpoint was recurrence rate and the time to the first recurrence.

Results

A total of 256 patients (mean age 45.0±15.4 years, 65.6% females, 80.9% with idiopathic/viral aetiology) were included. 64 (25.0%) were treated with anakinra as monotherapy while 192 (75.0%) with both anakinra and colchicine. After a follow-up of 12 months, 56 (21.9%) patients had recurrences. Patients treated with colchicine added to anakinra had a lower incidence of recurrences (respectively, 18.8% vs 31.3%; p=0.036) and a longer event-free survival (p=0.025). In multivariable analysis, colchicine use prevented recurrences (HR 0.52, 95% CI 0.29 to 0.91; p=0.021).

Conclusions

The addition of colchicine on top of anakinra treatment could be helpful to reduce recurrences and prolong the recurrence-free survival.
Concordance and agreement between different activity scores in polymyalgia rheumatica
Authors: D'Agostino Justine , Souki Aghiles , Lohse Anne , Carvajal Alegria Guillermo , Dernis Emanuelle , Richez Christophe , Truchetet Marie-Elise , Wendling Daniel , Toussirot Eric , Perdriger Aleth , Gottenberg Jacques-Eric , Felten Renaud , Fautrel Bruno , Chiche Laurent , Hilliquin Pascal , Le Henaff Catherine , Dervieux Benjamin , Direz Guillaume , Chary-Valckenaere Isabelle , Cornec Divi , Guellec Dewi , Marhadour Thierry , Nowak Emmanuel , Saraux Alain , Devauchelle-Pensec Valérie
Published: March 2024

Objective

The C reactive protein polymyalgia rheumatica activity score (CRP-PMR-AS) is a composite index that includes CRP levels and was developed specifically for PMR. As treatments such as interleukin-6 antagonists can normalise CRP levels, the erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR) of PMR-AS, the clinical (clin)-PMR-AS and the imputed-CRP (imp-CRP)-PMR-AS have been developed to avoid such bias. Our primary objective was to measure the correlation of these activity scores. Our secondary objective was to evaluate the concordance between different cutoffs of the PMR-ASs.

Method

Data from the Safety and Efficacy of tocilizumab versus Placebo in Polymyalgia rHeumatica With glucocORticoid dEpendence (SEMAPHORE) trial, a superiority randomised double-blind placebo-controlled trial, were subjected to post hoc analysis to compare the efficacy of tocilizumab versus placebo in patients with active PMR. The CRP-PMR-AS, ESR-PMR-AS, clin-PMR-AS and imp-CRP-PMR-AS were measured at every visit. The concordance and correlation between these scores were evaluated using kappa correlation coefficients, Bland-Altman correlations, intraclass correlation coefficients (ICCs) and scatter plots.

Results

A total of 101 patients were included in the SEMAPHORE trial, and 100 were analysed in this study. The correlation between the PMR-ASs was excellent, as the ICC and kappa were >0.85 from week 4 until week 24 (CRP-PMR-AS ≤10 or >10). Bland-Altman plots revealed that the differences between the CRP-PMR-AS and the other three

scores were low. The cut-off values for the clin-PMR-AS were similar to those for the CRP-PMR-AS 86% of the time.

Conclusion

The correlation between all the PMR-ASs was excellent, reflecting the low weight of CRP. In clinical trials using drugs that have an impact on CRP, the derived activity scores can be used.

Trial registration number

NTC02908217.
Homecare workers needs and experiences in end of life care: rapid review
Authors: Forward Catherine , Bayley Zana , Walker Liz , Krygier Justine , White Caroline , Mwaba Kasonde , Elliott-button Helene , Taylor Paul , Johnson Miriam J
Published: March 2024

Background

Social homecare workers provide essential care to those living at home at the end of life. In the context of a service experiencing difficulties in attracting and retaining staff, we have limited knowledge about the training, support needs and experiences of this group.

Aim

To gain a timely understanding from the international literature of the experience, training and support needs of homecare workers providing end-of-life care.

Methods

We conducted a rapid review and narrative synthesis using the recommendations of the Cochrane Rapid Reviews Methods Group. Building on a previous review, social homecare worker and end-of-life search terms were used to identify studies. Quality appraisal was conducted using a multimethods tool.

Data sources

CINAHL and Medline databases (2011–2023; English language).

Results

19 papers were included representing 2510 participants (91% women) providing new and deeper insights. Four themes were generated: (1) emotional support; homecare workers need to manage complex and distressing situations, navigating their own, their clients’ and clients’ family, emotions; (2) interaction with other social and healthcare workers; homecare workers are isolated from, and undervalued and poorly understood by the wider healthcare team; (3) training and support; recognising the deteriorating client, symptom management, practicalities around death, communications skills and supervision; (4) recognising good practice; examples of good practice exist but data regarding effectiveness or implementation of interventions are scant.

Conclusions

Social homecare workers are essential for end-of-life care at home but are inadequately trained, often isolated and underappreciated. Our findings are important for policy-makers addressing this crucial challenge, and service providers in social and healthcare.
Back-reaction of long-wavelength cosmological fluctuations as measured by a clock field
Authors: Comeau Vincent , Brandenberger Robert
Published: March 2024

We consider the back-reaction of cosmological fluctuations on the local expansion rate averaged over a space-like hypersurface of constant value of a clock field. We show that in the infrared limit, the fluctuations lead to a decrease in the average expansion rate, measured at a fixed value of the clock field, compared to what would be obtained in a homogeneous universe. We work in the context of Einstein gravity coupled to perfect fluid matter.
Fuzzy dark matter and the dark dimension
Authors: Anchordoqui Luis A. , Antoniadis Ignatios , Lüst Dieter
Published: March 2024

We propose a new dark matter contender within the context of the so-called “dark dimension”, an innovative 5-dimensional construct that has a compact space with characteristic length-scale in the micron range. The new dark matter candidate is the radion, a bulk scalar field whose quintessence-like potential drives an inflationary phase described by a 5-dimensional de Sitter (or approximate) solution of Einstein equations. We show that the radion could be ultralight and thereby serve as a fuzzy dark matter candidate. We advocate a simple cosmological production mechanism bringing into play unstable Kaluza–Klein graviton towers which are fueled by the decay of the inflaton.
Gauge Bosons Masses in the context of the Supersymmetric SU(3)C⊗SU(3)L⊗U(1)N model
Authors: Rodriguez M. C.
Published: March 2024

In this article, we present a detailed study of the masses of all gauge bosons, as well as explaining recent experimental data regarding the W-boson mass presented by the CDF collaboration and even possible changes that these data can bring to experimental measurements of the masses of Z-boson mass in the context of the Minimal Supersymmetric [Formula: see text] Model. We also intend to show a phenomenological analysis of possible mixtures of gauge bosons in this model. We will show that our numerical predictions for the masses of the physical gauge bosons are within the current experimental limits.
Investigation of the scalar unparticle and anomalous couplings at muon colliders in final states with multiple photons in the Randall–Sundrum model
Authors: Giang Bui Thi Ha , Soa Dang Van , Dung Le Mai
Published: March 2024

The influence of the scalar unparticle and anomalous couplings at muon colliders in final states with multiple photons in the Randall–Sundrum model is evaluated in detail. The results indicate that with fixed collision energies, the total cross-sections for the production of multiple photons depend strongly on the polarization of the muon beams, the parameters of unparticle physics (the scaling dimension [Formula: see text], operator [Formula: see text], the energy scale [Formula: see text]) and also the strength of anomalous couplings. Numerical evaluation shows that the cross-sections for the production of four photons in finale states with the contribution of scalar anomalous couplings are much larger than that of the unparticle under the same conditions. In the Higgs–radion mixing, the cross-sections achieve the maximum value at the radion-dominated state, [Formula: see text][Formula: see text]GeV, in which the cross-section is much enhanced and can be measurable in current experiments.
Medical Image Segmentation with Dual-Encoding and Multi-Level Feature Adaptive Fusion
Authors: Wu Shulei , Yang You , Zhang Fanghong
Published: March 2024

Purpose: Accurate segmentation of medical images is critical for disease diagnosis, surgical planning and prognostic assessment. TransUNet, a hybrid CNN-Transformer-based method, extracts local features using CNN and compensates for the lack of long-range dependencies through a self-attention mechanism. However, the initial focus on extracting local features from specific regions impacts the generation of subsequent global features, thus constraining the model’s capacity to effectively capture a broader range of semantic information. Effective integration of local and global features plays a pivotal role in achieving precise and dense prediction. Therefore, we propose a novel hybrid CNN-Transformer-based method aimed at enhancing medical image segmentation.

Approach: In this study, a dual-encoder parallel structure is used to enhance the feature representation of the input image. By introducing a multi-scale adaptive feature fusion module, a fine fusion of local features across perceptual domains is realized in the decoding process. The generalized convolutional block attention module helps to increase cross-channel interactions in layers with more channels, thus enabling the fusion of local features and global representations at different resolutions during the decoding process.

Results: The proposed method achieves average DSC scores of 79.98%, 84.83% and 85.78% on the Synapse, ISIC2017 and Pediatric Pyelonephritis datasets, respectively. These scores are 2.5%, 0.56% and 0.42% higher than those of TransUNet. The best performance of 91.66% is observed on the ACDC dataset, representing improvements of 2.46% and 7.24% compared to HiFormer and DAE-Former, respectively.

Conclusions: The experimental results show that the proposed model has a significant competitive advantage in terms of ACDC image segmentation performance.
Query Expansion Using Proposed Location-Based Algorithm for Hindi–English CLIR: Analyzing Three Test Collections
Authors: Chandra Ganesh , Dwivedi Sanjay K.
Published: March 2024

The rapid growth of contents on the Web in different languages increases the demand of Cross-Lingual Information Retrieval (CLIR). The accuracy of result suffers due to many problems such as ambiguity and drift issue in query. Query Expansion (QE) offers reliable solution for obtaining suitable documents for user queries. In this paper, we proposed an architecture for Hindi–English CLIR system using QE for improving the relevancy of retrieved results. In this architecture, for the addition of term(s) at appropriate position(s), we proposed a location-based algorithm to resolve the drift query issue in QE. User queries in Hindi language have been translated into document language (i.e. English) and the accuracy of translation is improved using Back-Translation. Google search has been performed and the retrieved documents are ranked using Okapi BM25 to arrange the documents in the order of decreasing relevancy to select the most suitable terms for QE. We used term selection value (TSV) for QE and for retrieving the terms, we created three test collections namely the (i) description and narration of the Forum for Information Retrieval Evaluation (FIRE) dataset, (ii) Snippets of retrieved documents against each query and (iii) Nearest-Neighborhood (NN) words against each query word among the ranked documents. To evaluate the system, 50 queries of Hindi language are selected from the FIRE-2012 dataset. In this paper, we performed two experiments: (i) impact of the proposed location-based algorithm on the proposed architecture of CLIR; and (ii) analysis of QE using three datasets, i.e. FIRE, NN and Snippets. In the first case, result shows that the relevancy of Hindi–English CLIR is improved by performing QE using the location-based algorithm and a 12% of improvement is achieved as compared to the results of QE obtained without applying the location-based algorithm. In the second case, the location-based algorithm is applied on three datasets. The Mean Average Precision (MAP) values of retrieved documents after QE are 0.5379 (NN), 0.6018 (FIRE) and 0.6406 (Snippets) for the three test collections, whereas the MAP before QE is 0.37102. This clearly shows the significant improvement of retrieved results for all three test collections. Among the three test collections, QE has been found most effective along with Snippets as indicated by the results with the improvements of 6.48% and 19.12% over FIRE and NN test collections, respectively.
2023 update of the discoveries of nuclides
Authors: Thoennessen M.
Published: March 2024

The 2023 update of the discovery of nuclide project is presented when 13 nuclides were observed for the first time. In addition, a major update and revision of the isotope discovery project is described.
How to Make Long-Term Investments in a Stock Market? A Generic Strategy for Investors
Authors: He Guanming , Li April Zhichao , Shen Dongxiao
Published: March 2024

Against the backdrop of increasingly fierce industrial competition nowadays, firms tend to have substantive business risk and/or information risk, increasing the estimation risk and limit of arbitrage for investors in their short-term investments in a stock market. It is thus important for investors to hold a long-term horizon for at least part of their investments in the stock market. This paper aims to introduce a long-term investment strategy that is practically feasible and potentially valuable to investors. To this end, we first develop a parsimonious model in which we identify the major determinants of a firm’s value. This model is used to select high-value firms from each industry for further fundamental analysis and valuation. We next expatiate on how to perform strategy analysis, accounting analysis, financial analysis, and prospective analysis, and therein apply the residual operating income valuation model, in the best possible manner to further value the selected firms and their long-term investment potential. Lastly, we expound the strategy of forming and adjusting a long-term investment portfolio in a way that potentially maximizes long-term portfolio return.
Trade War Actions, Reporting Strategies, and Stock Market Reactions
Authors: Zhang Wenjia , Du Julan
Published: March 2024

Investors’ perceptions of uncertainty have increased since Donald Trump’s inauguration, primarily as a result of trade frictions. In the context of China-US trade frictions, this study investigates the joint effects of the actions of the parties and media tone on the Chinese stock market. The trade friction reports are classified into 12 groups based on two dimensions, that is, the actions of the parties and the tone of the state-controlled media. The result shows that the role played by the state-controlled media depends on the actions taken by both the parties, as well as the type of firms. Specifically, when the US took action, either launched attacks or made concessions, adopting a high tone played some role in boosting returns and curbing fluctuations; adjusting reporting strategies also played some role in elevating the liquidity of both types of firms and influencing domestic southbound investments. Market reactions were more influenced by the actions than the official attitudes when China made concessions or when both sides took action (attacks or concessions).
Liquidity of Non-US and Energy Stocks Listed on the NYSE in the Aftermath of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Incident
Authors: Kim Jang-Chul , Su Qing
Published: March 2024

In this paper, we investigate the impact of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear incident on the liquidity of non-US stocks in the Asia-Pacific region, specifically those listed on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE). The Fukushima Daiichi nuclear incident occurred in March 2011, following a severe earthquake and tsunami in Japan, and its consequences have extended beyond the borders of Japan. Our study shows that non-US stocks from Japan are associated with significantly wider spreads and higher price impacts. Additionally, we find a similar negative liquidity effect for energy stocks listed on the NYSE and stocks from neighboring countries such as China and South Korea, primarily due to geographic proximity. However, we do not observe any significant changes in the liquidity of stocks from the remaining Asia-Pacific countries. Furthermore, we examine the duration of this negative shock and observe that the illiquidity of stocks from Japan persists for over three weeks. In contrast, the liquidity of energy stocks and stocks from China and South Korea recovers within one week following the incident.
A Multiple Scale Approach to Nonlinear Vibrations and Stability of Doubly Curved Shells/Panels Under External and Parametric Excitations
Authors: Montaseri Mohammad Amin , Rahmanian Mohammad , Hosseini Seyyed Ali Asghar
Published: March 2024

This study focuses on nonlinear vibrations and stability of doubly curved shells/panels. The thin-walled shell structure is assumed to be acted upon by external loads as well as parametric excitation. Using the first-order shear deformation Fülgge theory assumptions, governing equations of motion are derived for a general doubly curved geometry. Nonlinear components which are compatible with the Von-Karman kinematic assumptions are retained in the formulation and the rest of nonlinear components are neglected due to the fact that strains are assumed to be small and rotations to be moderate. The formulation can be readily reduced to any geometry including cylindrical shells and spherical panels, as benchmark examples in this study. Employing the Galerkin discretization approach and applying a modification to the Volmir assumption, a reduced order form of the original system is determined, which is shown to be a great representative of the original system with much more computational advantages. Using the method of multiple scales, the reduced order nonlinear governing equations are solved to discover the primary resonance, forced vibration characteristics and stability margins of thin-walled shells/panels under the action of parametric excitation. Several interesting findings on nonlinear behavior of cylindrical shells and spherical panels (as benchmark geometries) are presented while giving a demonstration of the accuracy and computational advantages of the proposed model.
A Nonlocal Numerical Solution Based on Carrera Unified Formulation for Static and Free Vibration Analysis of Laminated Composite Nanoplate
Authors: Cuong-Le Thanh , Le Minh Hoang , Linh-Nguyen Thi Thuy , Luong Van Hai , Khatir Samir , Tran Minh Thi , Nguyen Thai-Binh
Published: March 2024

This paper presents an advanced numerical model based on Carrera unified formulation (CUF) and isogeometric analysis (IGA), the size-dependent finite element unified formulation model is proposed to investigate the static bending and free vibration of laminated composite nano-plate. The CUF type of trigonometric function with nine degrees of freedom is used to simulate the displacement fields of laminated nano-plate. The size effect of nano-plate structures is included through the Eringen’s nonlocal elastic theory. The size-dependent governing equations for static bending and free vibration of laminated are established based on CUF, IGA and nonlocal theory. The correctness of the presented numerical model is verified by comparison with existing solutions. Furthermore, with the addition of a nonlocal effect, the plate’s stiffness decreases correlating to an increase in nonlocal parameter. Through different calculations, the changes in the static and free vibration responses of laminated composite nano-plate are effected by nonlocal parameter, plate length-to-thickness ratio, and boundary conditions including Young’s modulus ratio.
Smart Grids Secured by Dynamic Watermarking: How Secure?
Authors: Davis Kate , Kish Laszlo B. , Singh Chanan
Published: March 2024

Unconditional security for smart grids is defined. Cryptanalyses of the watermarked security of smart grids indicate that watermarking cannot guarantee unconditional security unless the communication within the grid system is unconditionally secure. The successful attack against the dynamically watermarked smart grid remains valid even with the presence of internal noise from the grid. An open question arises if unconditionally authenticated secure communications within the grid, together with tamper resistance of the critical elements, are satisfactory conditions to provide unconditional security for the grid operation.
Comparative Performance Analysis of Filtering Methods for Removing Baseline Wander Noise from an ECG Signal
Authors: Ozaydin Selma , Ahmad Imteyaz
Published: March 2024

ECG signals play a vital role in the diagnosis of cardiovascular conditions. However, they often suffer from the effects of various noise sources, including baseline wandering, respiratory artifact noise, power line interference and electrode motion artifacts. To overcome these challenges, it is imperative to implement low-frequency signal noise reduction strategies. Such strategies aim to significantly improve the quality of ECG signals, thus promoting more accurate and reliable diagnosis of cardiovascular disorders. This paper conducts a comparative analysis to assess the effectiveness of commonly used filtering and wavelet techniques in reducing Baseline Wander (BW) noise within ECG signals generated by the influence of breathing or electrode movements. It is common to observe the selection and evaluation of only one particular technique in the existing literature. In contrast, this study aims to provide a comprehensive comparative analysis, providing insight into the performance and relative merits of different techniques. Our research uses both filtering and Discrete Wavelet Transform (DWT) techniques in baseline noise removal. In this context, a reference point is established utilizing noise-free signals and a meticulous investigation of the wavelet-based approach that most effectively eliminates the resulting noise is provided. Subsequently, we assess the reference input and output signal via Signal-to-Noise Ratio (SNR) and Kolmogorov–Smirnov statistical test measurements. The most important contribution of this work to the scientific community resides in the comprehensive examination of IIR/FIR-based and wavelet method-based filtering methods capable of yielding the highest SNR levels across various ECG signals with various types of BW noise. Additionally, the effectiveness of the Chebychev-II filter in BW noise removal is highlighted. Our study was conducted using the MATLAB platform and code command lines were shared to facilitate the reproduction of our study by other researchers. It is considered that this study will be an important reference in the selection of effective techniques for removing BW noise within ECG signals.
Electronic and half-metallic behavior of copper-doped silicon carbide armchair single-walled nanotubes using density functional theory
Authors: Das Dipan Kumar , Patnaik Padmaja , Nayak Santanu Kumar , Barala Mandakini
Published: March 2024

Due to their remarkable mechanical, thermal and electrical characteristics, silicon carbide (SiC) single-walled nanotubes (SWNTs) are an unusual and promising class of materials. Density functional theory (DFT) is used in this study to examine the electrical and structural characteristics of copper-doped SiC armchair SWNTs. It has been discovered that copper doping of SiC armchair SWNTs alters the materials’ electrical characteristics. SiC SWNTs band gap plays a significant role in influencing the electrical conductivity and optical characteristics of the substance. The energy bands i.e., valence band and conduction band of SiC armchair SWNTs overlapped as copper doping concentration increased, altering the materials’ electrical conductivity and optical characteristics. Additionally, a continuous density of states plot and a narrower band gap are frequently employed as markers of ferroelectric behaviour which indicates the existence of a polarizable and highly delocalized electronic system. The significance of copper doping in SiC SWNTs is understood by this study, along with the effects of the doping on the material’s electrical properties.
Adaptive Dynamic Programming-Based Attitude Optimal Tracking Control for a Quadrotor with Unmeasured Velocities and Model Uncertainties
Authors: Guo Junrui , Gao Xiaoyang , Li Tieshan
Published: March 2024

This paper proposes an optimal output feedback tracking control scheme of the quadrotor unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) attitude system with unmeasured angular velocities and model uncertainties. First, neural network (NN) is used to approximate the model uncertainties. Then, an NN velocity observer is established to estimate the unmeasured angular velocities. Further, a quadrotor output feedback attitude optimal tracking controller is designed, which consists of an adaptive controller designed by backstepping method and an optimal compensation term designed by adaptive dynamic programming. All signals in the closed-loop system are proved to be bounded. Finally, numerical simulation example shows that the quadrotor attitude tracking scheme is effective and feasible.
Experiencing the Impacts of Climate Change-Induced Salinity by Women in Coastal Region of Bangladesh
Authors: Khanam Dilafroze , Kabir Zobaidul , Dina Shahana Afrin , Islam Abu Reza Md Towfiqul
Published: March 2024

This paper aims to understand the impact of salinity on women in coastal areas of Bangladesh. While there is ample information on the impact of climate change on coastal areas in Bangladesh, the literature shows that there is hardly any information on the impact of climate-induced salinity on women. This study is an attempt to fill this gap. An in-depth interview method was applied to collect primary data from a salinity prone coastal region in Satkhira District of Bangladesh. The study shows that salinity affects the women and girls in many ways. The impacts of salinity on women include the unattractiveness of women and girls due to the loss of hair and skin color, the increased burden of work due to water collection far from homes, unable to attend school by girls, the sufferings of women from various diseases, health and hygiene problem, and early child marriage. The consequences of the impacts of salinity on women lead to domestic violence, increased rate of divorce, increased number of female-headed households, and increased poverty due to limited sources of livelihoods. Overall, the adverse impacts of salinity on women make them more vulnerable socially and financially. The policy implications of this study may include the increased awareness of males about the impacts of salinity on women, appropriate institutional arrangements by the government including the adoption of policies and plans incorporating the issues faced by the women due to increasing salinity. It is expected that this study will not only be useful to policymakers in Bangladesh but also to other countries with similar contexts.
CySecBERT
: A Domain-Adapted Language Model for the Cybersecurity Domain
Authors: Bayer Markus , Kuehn Philipp , Shanehsaz Ramin , Reuter Christian
Published: March 2024

The field of cysec is evolving fast. Security professionals are in need of intelligence on past, current and —ideally — upcoming threats, because attacks are becoming more advanced and are increasingly targeting larger and more complex systems. Since the processing and analysis of such large amounts of information cannot be addressed manually, cysec experts rely on machine learning techniques. In the textual domain, pre-trained language models such as Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers (BERT) have proven to be helpful as they provide a good baseline for further fine-tuning. However, due to the domain-knowledge and the many technical terms in cysec, general language models might miss the gist of textual information. For this reason, we create a high-quality dataset

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and present a language model

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specifically tailored to the cysec domain that can serve as a basic building block for cybersecurity systems. The model is compared on 15 tasks: Domain-dependent extrinsic tasks for measuring the performance on specific problems, intrinsic tasks for measuring the performance of the internal representations of the model, as well as general tasks from the SuperGLUE benchmark. The results of the intrinsic tasks show that our model improves the internal representation space of domain words compared with the other models. The extrinsic, domain-dependent tasks, consisting of sequence tagging and classification, show that the model performs best in cybersecurity scenarios. In addition, we pay special attention to the choice of hyperparameters against catastrophic forgetting, as pre-trained models tend to forget the original knowledge during further training.
On the Complexity of Chow and Hurwitz Forms
Authors: Dogan M. Levent , Ergür Alperen A. , Tsigaridas Elias
Published: March 2024

We consider the bit complexity of computing Chow forms of projective varieties defined over integers and their generalization to multiprojective spaces. We develop a deterministic algorithm using resultants and obtain a single exponential complexity upper bound. Earlier computational results for Chow forms were in the arithmetic complexity model; thus, our result represents the first bit complexity bound. We also extend our algorithm to Hurwitz forms in projective space and we explore connections between multiprojective Hurwitz forms and matroid theory. The motivation for our work comes from incidence geometry where intriguing computational algebra problems remain open.