bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Reflection is key
Authors: Allingham Sue
Published: September 2021

There is a lot of information out there, from guidance, news stories and articles, to blogs and social media content. Dr Sue Allingham explores how Early Childhood Education can be misinterpreted by those with no background in it, and how important it is for practitioners to reflect.
A New Start
Authors: Boddey James , Skinner Don
Published: September 2021

Do you have something to share, reflect on or provoke thinking around? Write to the editor: angelica.celinska@markallengroup.com
Starting term
Authors: Francis Emily
Published: September 2021

The first term in EYFS is unlike any other term in school, and I truly believe all teachers should experience this in order to better understand children's starting points in education.
Cyberslacking Behavior and Its Relationship with Academic Performance: A Study of Students in Indonesia
Authors: Margaretha Meily , Sherlywati Sherlywati , Monalisa Yani , Mariana Ana , Junita Imelda , Martalena Martalena , Iskandar Dini , Nur Nur
Published: September 2021

Students are aware of the use of technology in the learning process, and they are generally referred to as digital natives. However, there are challenges associated with the availability of internet access as a learning process to both university students and teachers inside and outside the classroom. One of such challenges is students’ ability to access unrelated activities which is known as cyberslacking. In the education sector, this process refers to the use of technology for unrelated academic activities. Studies associated with this activity are significantly conducted in western countries, but it is still limited to the Indonesia education environment. Therefore, this research aims to investigate the cyberslacking behavior of students in Indonesia and its relationship to their academic performances. It also determines the relationship between media multi-tasking efficacy and self-regulated learning. The results showed that there is a significant influence between media multi-tasking efficacy and self-regulated learning with cyberslacking. Furthermore, there is a negative influence between cyberslacking and the academic performance of students in Indonesia. This research adds references to studies on cyberslacking in the scope of education and provides input for universities to develop the management of information and communication technology used in the learning process.
A Game-Based Learning Activity to Promote Conceptual Understanding of Chordates’ Phylogeny and Self-Efficacy to Learn Evolutionary Biology
Authors: Punyasettro Santhanat , Yasri Pratchayapong
Published: September 2021

Understanding phylogenetic trees representing evolutionary relationships of living organisms is essential in school biology. Traditional instructions based on lectures and textbooks with pictorial presentations have been proven ineffective to promote students’ understanding of the concept. This study, therefore, developed a game-based learning activity called the VERT card game to enhance students’ learning of the phylogenetic taxonomy of chordates. The VERT card game was designed to lay the foundation for different characteristics of chordate classes, as well as to allow students to construct and interpret their evolutionary relationships based on the phylogenetic tree. The effectiveness of the VERT card game was verified by a pre-test and post-test design with 109 middle school students in Thailand. The statistical result revealed that students’ mean scores increased significantly in the post-test, compared to the pre-test, indicating their improved understanding. In addition, after participating in the learning activity, the student participants were found to increase their self-efficacy to learn evolutionary biology statistically. Also, it showed positive views towards the usefulness of the developed card game as a large number of them expressed that they would like to use it for their lesson reviews and wished to have this form of learning activity in other topics in biology.
The Importance of Context in Social Justice Leadership: Implications for Policy and Practice
Authors: King Fiona , Travers Joe , McGowan Jean
Published: September 2021

This article contributes to the evidence base on the significance of context in enacting social justice leadership. It draws on data from the International School Leadership Development Network of 20+ countries who adopted a common qualitative approach involving interviews with principals identified as being social justice leaders. The article focuses on four case studies of Irish principals in varying primary elementary school contexts. Findings reveal local contextual features significantly impacted principals' perceptions, actions, and self-efficacy as social justice leaders. While the actions and motivation of the principals is similar, two of the principals, working in school contexts where the values and norms are not consonant with broader society, appear to lack confidence in their practice of social justice leadership. This article extends the existing evidence base by arguing for enhanced critical consciousness of all stakeholders related to the personal, institutional and community contexts in schools. It recommends a more flexible and iterative process of policy development to facilitate a more nuanced understanding of the cultural and ideological struggles in schools. Finally, it calls for governments and policy makers to take responsibility for and support disadvantaged communities as education alone cannot solve the issue of inequity.
Glaucoma classification in 3 x 3 mm en face macular scans using deep learning in different plexus
Authors: Schottenhamml Julia , Würfl Tobias , Mardin Sophia , Ploner Stefan B , Husvogt Lennart , Hohberger Bettina , Lämmer Robert , Mardin Christian , Maier Andreas
Published: September 2021

Glaucoma is among the leading causes of irreversible blindness worldwide. If diagnosed and treated early enough, the disease progression can be stopped or slowed down. Therefore, it would be very valuable to detect early stages of glaucoma, which are mostly asymptomatic, by broad screening. This study examines different computational features that can be automatically deduced from images and their performance on the classification task of differentiating glaucoma patients and healthy controls. Data used for this study are 3 x 3 mm en face optical coherence tomography angiography (OCTA) images of different retinal projections (of the whole retina, the superficial vascular plexus (SVP), the intermediate capillary plexus (ICP) and the deep capillary plexus (DCP)) centered around the fovea. Our results show quantitatively that the automatically extracted features from convolutional neural networks (CNNs) perform similarly well or better than handcrafted ones when used to distinguish glaucoma patients from healthy controls. On the whole retina projection and the SVP projection, CNNs outperform the handcrafted features presented in the literature. Area under receiver operating characteristics (AUROC) on the SVP projection is 0.967, which is comparable to the best reported values in the literature. This is achieved despite using the small 3 × 3 mm field of view, which has been reported as disadvantageous for handcrafted vessel density features in previous works. A detailed analysis of our CNN method, using attention maps, suggests that this performance increase can be partially explained by the CNN automatically relying more on areas of higher relevance for feature extraction.
CompassLSM: axially swept light-sheet microscopy made simple
Authors: Liu Yehe , Rollins Andrew M. , Jenkins Michael W.
Published: September 2021

Axially swept light-sheet microscopy (ASLM) is an effective method of generating a uniform light sheet across a large field of view (FOV). However, current ASLM designs are more complicated than conventional light-sheet systems, limiting their adaptation in less experienced labs. By eliminating difficult-to-align components and reducing the total number of components, we show that high-performance ASLM can be accomplished much simpler than existing designs, requiring less expertise and effort to construct, align, and operate. Despite the high simplicity, our design achieved 3.5-µm uniform optical sectioning across a >6-mm FOV, surpassing existing light-sheet designs with similar optical sectioning. With well-corrected chromatic aberration, multi-channel fluorescence imaging can be performed without realignment. This manuscript provides a comprehensive tutorial on building the system and demonstrates the imaging performance with optically cleared whole-mount tissue samples.
Detection of the Fraunhofer band B (690  nm) in the absorption spectra of oxygen in aerated solvents
Authors: Benditkis A. S. , Kozlov A. S. , Goncharov S. E. , Krasnovsky A. A.
Published: September 2021

IR phosphorescence (1270 nm) and chemical trapping of singlet

1

Δ
g

(

0

)

molecular oxygen have been studied in
aerated organic solvents under laser irradiation at 690 nm and 765 nm,
in order to reveal the Fraunhofer band B [

1

Σ

g

+

(

1

)
←

3

Σ

g

−

(

0

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transition] in the absorption spectra
of dissolved oxygen molecules at normal conditions and compare its
parameters with those of the previously observed Fraunhofer band A [

1

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g

+

(

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)

←

3

Σ

g

−

(

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)

transition]. Chemical trapping
experiments were found to be inappropriate for solution of this
problem because complexes of the traps with oxygen were revealed,
which were more photoactive under irradiation by red laser light than
oxygen molecules themselves. Phosphorescence of singlet oxygen was
reliably detected under laser irradiation of aerated solvents at
690 nm. It was about one order weaker than under excitation at 765 nm.
However, in both cases, phosphorescence linearly depended on
excitation power, equally increased after oxygen purging and built up
in the solvents containing heavy atoms (bromine and iodine). Similar
phosphorescence decay times were observed under pulsed laser
excitation at both 690 and 770 nm. The data provide compelling
evidence that phosphorescence arising under irradiation at 690 nm is
due to excitation of the Fraunhofer band B in the oxygen absorption
spectrum. The molar absorption coefficient at the peak of this band
was estimated to be

≈

5

×

10

−
5

M

−
1

c
m

−
1

in the aerated solvents lacking heavy
atoms. Thus, for the first time, absorption coefficients corresponding
to the Fraunhofer band B of dissolved oxygen were estimated in aerated
solvents under natural conditions. This information is important for
both spectroscopy of oxygen and mechanistic studies of biological and
therapeutic action of laser radiation.
Accuracy improvement in plastics classification by laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy based on a residual network
Authors: Peng Xinying , Xu Bohan , Xu Zhiying , Yan Xiaotao , Zhang Ning , Qin Yuzhi , Ma Qiongxiong , Li Jiaming , Zhao Nan , Zhang Qingmao
Published: September 2021

The whole ecosystem is suffering from serious plastic pollution. Automatic and accurate classification is an essential process in plastic effective recycle. In this work, we proposed an accurate approach for plastics classification using a residual network based on laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS). To increasing efficiency, the LIBS spectral data were compressed by peak searching algorithm based on continuous wavelet, then were transformed to characteristic images for training and validation of the residual network. Acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS), polyamide (PA), polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA), and polyvinyl chloride (PVC) from 13 manufacturers were used. The accuracy of the proposed method in few-shot learning was evaluated. The results show that when the number of training image data was 1, the verification accuracy of classification by plastic type under residual network still kept 100%, which was much higher than conventional classification algorithms (BP, kNN and SVM). Furthermore, the training and testing data were separated from different manufacturers to evaluate the anti-interference properties of the proposed method from various additives in plastics, where 73.34% accuracy was obtained. To demonstrate the superiority of classification accuracy in the proposed method, all the evaluations were also implemented by using conventional classification algorithm (kNN, BP, SVM algorithm). The results confirmed that the residual network has a significantly higher accuracy in plastics classification and shows great potential in plastic recycle industries for pollution mitigation.
Modal dynamics in multimode optical fibers: an attractor of high-order modes
Authors: He Weitao , Wu Ruihuan , Hong Weiyi , Luo Aiping
Published: September 2021

Multimode fibers (MMFs) support abundant spatial modes and involve rich spatiotemporal dynamics, yielding many promising applications. Here, we investigate the influences of the number and initial energy of high-order modes (HOMs) on the energy flow from the intermediate modes (IMs) to the fundamental mode (FM) and HOMs. It is quite surprising that random distribution of high-order modes evolves to a stationary one, indicating the asymptotic behavior of orbits in the same attraction domain. By employing the Lyapunov exponent, we prove that the threshold of the HOMs-attractor is consistent with the transition point of the energy flow which indicates the HOMs-attracotr acts as a "valve" in the modal energy flow. Our results provide a new perspective to explore the nonlinear phenomena in MMFs, such as Kerr self-cleaning, and may pave the way to some potential applications, such as secure communications in MMFs.
Surface phonon resonance enhanced Goos-Hänchen shift and its sensing application in the mid-infrared region
Authors: Zhang Jing , Jiang Bo , Song Yibin , Xu Yi
Published: September 2021

The effect of surface phonon resonance (SPhR) and long range SPhR (LRSPhR) on the Goos-Hänchen shift (GHS) in the mid-infrared wavelength region are investigated. The GHS is significantly enhanced around the resonant angles of SPhR and LRSPhR with the p-polarized incident light. A highly sensitive refractive index sensor based on the enhanced GHS is proposed. The LRSPhR shows higher GHS and sensitivity than those of SPhR. The GHS and refractive index sensitivity can be further enhanced by engineering the damping rate of the phononic material. These results provide a potential route toward the large GHS and high refractive index sensitivity, thus opening up new opportunities for high sensitivity optical sensors based on GHS at the mid-infrared wavelength range.
Highly sensitive vibration sensor based on the dispersion turning point microfiber Mach-Zehnder interferometer
Authors: Liu Kaijun , Fan Junhao , Luo Binbin , Zou Xue , Wu Decao , Zou Xianglong , Shi Shenghui , Guo Yufeng , Zhao Mingfu
Published: September 2021

In the present work, we introduced a highly sensitive vibration sensor, which is based on the dispersion turning point (DTP) microfiber Mach-Zehnder interferometer. The axial strain and vibration sensing characteristics of the microfiber Mach-Zehnder interferometer were investigated. First, we theoretically analyzed the spectrum evolution characteristics of the microfiber Mach-Zehnder interferometer caused by axial strain. Second, the microfiber with different diameters was fabricated using the electrode discharge and fused taper method, and the axial strain experiments were conducted; the maximum sensitivity of the DTP microfiber with a diameter of ∼2.2 µm reached -45.55 pm/µɛ at ∼1550 nm. Finally, based on the axial strain principle of the microfiber, we designed a highly sensitive vibration sensor using a DTP microfiber integrated into a rectangular through-hole cantilever beam. The 30-3500 Hz vibration signal monitoring could be realized, the maximum signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) was ∼75 dB at 52 Hz, and the acceleration sensitivity reached as high as 0.764 V/g at 45Hz. These results suggested the high performance of the microfiber in axial strain and micro-vibration sensing fields.
Water-window high harmonic generation with 0.8-µm and 2.2-µm OPCPAs at 100 kHz
Authors: Chevreuil P.-A. , Brunner F. , Hrisafov S. , Pupeikis J. , Phillips C. R. , Keller U. , Gallmann L.
Published: September 2021

We compare the generation of high-order harmonics in the water window (283-543 eV) with 0.8-µm and 2.2-µm few-cycle lasers at a pulse repetition rate of 100 kHz. Using conventional phase matching with the 2.2-µm driver and what we attribute to nonadiabatic self-phase-matching with the 0.8-µm driver, photons up to 0.6 keV (2 nm) are generated in both cases. Special attention is paid to the understanding of the generation mechanism with the 0.8-µm laser amplifier system. We use the same beamline and pump laser for both drivers, which allows for a direct flux comparison at the two driving wavelengths. For photon energies around 280 eV, a 10-100 times higher flux is obtained from the 2.2-µm versus the 0.8-µm laser system in helium and neon. The crossover at which the 2.2-µm yields a higher flux compared to the 0.8-µm driver is found to be as high as 0.2 keV. Our study supports the common approach of using long-wavelength lasers in a phase-matched regime for efficient generation of water-window harmonics, but also shows that the more widespread 0.8-µm wavelength can be used to generate water-window harmonics with an efficiency close to the one of a less common 2.2-µm source.
Generalization of ray tracing in symmetric gradient-index media by Fermat’s ray invariants
Authors: Gómez-Correa J. E. , Padilla-Ortiz A. L. , Jaimes-Nájera A. , Trevino J. P. , Chávez-Cerda S.
Published: September 2021

Ray tracing in gradient-index (GRIN) media has been traditionally performed either by using the analytical or numerical solutions to the Eikonal equation or by creating a layered medium where Snell’s law is calculated in each layer. In this paper, an exact general method to perform ray tracing in GRIN media is presented based on the invariants of the system as stated by Fermat’s principle when the media presents symmetries. Its advantage, compared with other methods reported in the literature, relies on its easy implementation. Besides the GRIN distribution and the initial conditions of the incident ray, once the invariants of the system are stated the resulting math is simple to solve and interpret. To benchmark the algorithm, ray tracing in typical cases of GRIN media is calculated, finding minimal discrepancies between the analytical solutions and our simulations. The used media are axial refractive index and parabolic index fiber and lenses with spherical gradient-index symmetry, such as: Luneburg’s, Gutman’s, generalized Maxwell’s Fish-eye, Eaton’s, and concentrator lenses. Our method can be further applied to distributions with symmetries associated with other common curvilinear orthogonal coordinate systems, in particular to those associated to the separability of the Helmholtz equation that would allow us to investigate wave optics in these GRIN media with the associated geometries.
Effects of light-wave nonstaticity on accompanying geometric-phase evolutions
Authors: Ryeol Choi Jeong
Published: September 2021

Quantum mechanics allows the emergence of nonstatic quantum light waves in the Fock state even in a transparent medium of which electromagnetic parameters do not vary over time. Such wave packets become broad and narrow in turn periodically in the quadrature space. We investigate the effects of wave nonstaticity arisen in a static environment on the behavior of accompanying geometric phases in the Fock states. In this case, the geometric phases appear only when the measure of nonstaticity is not zero and their time behavior is deeply related to the measure of nonstaticity. While the dynamical phases undergo linear decrease over time, the geometric phases exhibit somewhat oscillatory behavior where the center of oscillation increases linearly. In particular, if the measure of nonstaticity is sufficiently high, the geometric phases abruptly change whenever the waves become narrow in the quadrature space. The understanding for the phase evolution of nonstatic light waves is necessary in their technological applications regarding wave modulations.
Opto-thermally controlled beam steering in nonlinear all-dielectric metastructures
Authors: Rocco Davide , Gandolfi Marco , Tognazzi Andrea , Pashina Olesiya , Zograf George , Frizyuk Kristina , Gigli Carlo , Leo Giuseppe , Makarov Sergey , Petrov Mihail , De Angelis Costantino
Published: September 2021

Reconfigurable metasurfaces have recently gained a lot of attention in applications such as adaptive meta-lenses, hyperspectral imaging and optical modulation. This kind of metastructure can be obtained by an external control signal, enabling us to dynamically manipulate the electromagnetic radiation. Here, we theoretically propose an AlGaAs device to control the second harmonic generation (SHG) emission at nanoscale upon optimized optical heating. The asymmetric shape of the used meta-atom is selected to guarantee a predominant second harmonic (SH) emission towards the normal direction. The proposed structure is concurrently excited by a pump beam at a fundamental wavelength of 1540 nm and by a continuous wave (CW) control signal above the semiconductor band gap. The optical tuning is achieved by a selective optimization of meta-atoms SH phase, which is modulated by the control signal intensity. We numerically demonstrate that the heating induced in the meta-atoms by the CW pump can be used to dynamically tune the device properties. In particular, we theoretically demonstrate a SH beam steering of 8° with respect to the vertical axis for an optimized device with average temperature increase even below 90° C.
Efficient ESPI method to identify vibration characteristics of transparent films
Authors: Ma Yinhang , Jiang Hanyang , Cheng Hao , Wu Minyang , He Xiaoyuan , Yang Fujun
Published: September 2021

Electronic speckle pattern interferometry (ESPI) has been frequently used to study vibration characteristics of engineering structures. However, efficient ESPI methods for identifying the vibration characteristics of transparent membranes are rarely reported. A convenient approach to determine the resonant frequencies and the vibration modes of transparent films is proposed. A quasi-common-path ESPI (QCP-ESPI) is developed to detect out-of-plane deformation and visualize vibrational modes of a vibrating transparent diaphragm. An amplitude-modulation-based method is proposed for quick and accurate determining resonance of oscillating objects during frequency scanning. Experimental performances demonstrate the feasibility and efficiency of the QCP-ESPI and amplitude-modulation-based methods for determining the resonant frequency and vibration modes of transparent objects.
Human leishmaniasis vaccines: Use cases, target population and potential global demand
Authors: Malvolti Stefano , Malhame Melissa , Mantel Carsten F. , Le Rutte Epke A. , Kaye Paul M.
Published: September 2021

The development of vaccines against one or all forms of human leishmaniasis remains hampered by a paucity of investment, at least in part resulting from the lack of well-evidenced and agreed estimates of vaccine demand. Starting from the definition of 4 main use cases (prevention of visceral leishmaniasis, prevention of cutaneous leishmaniasis, prevention of post-kala-azar dermal leishmaniasis and treatment of post-kala-azar dermal leishmaniasis), we have estimated the size of each target population, focusing on those endemic countries where incidence levels are sufficiently high to justify decisions to adopt a vaccine. We assumed a dual vaccine delivery strategy, including a wide age-range catch-up campaign before the start of routine immunisation. Vaccine characteristics and delivery parameters reflective of a target product profile and the likely duration of the clinical development effort were considered in forecasting the demand for each of the four indications. Over a period of 10 years, this demand is forecasted to range from 300–830 million doses for a vaccine preventing visceral leishmaniasis and 557–1400 million doses for a vaccine preventing cutaneous leishmaniasis under the different scenarios we simulated. In a scenario with an effective prophylactic visceral leishmaniasis vaccine, demand for use to prevent or treat post-kala-azar dermal leishmaniasis would be more limited (over the 10 years ~160,000 doses for prevention and ~7,000 doses for treatment). Demand would rise to exceed 330,000 doses, however, in the absence of an effective vaccine for visceral leishmaniasis. Because of the sizeable demand and potential for public health impact, a single-indication prophylactic vaccine for visceral or cutaneous leishmaniasis, and even more so a cross-protective prophylactic vaccine could attract the interest of commercial developers. Continuous refinement of these first-of-their kind estimates and confirmation of country willingness and ability to pay will be paramount to inform the decisions of policy makers and developers in relation to a leishmaniasis vaccine. Positive decisions can provide a much-needed contribution towards the achievement of global leishmaniasis control.
Clinical characterization of Lassa fever: A systematic review of clinical reports and research to inform clinical trial design
Authors: Merson Laura , Bourner Josephine , Jalloh Sulaiman , Erber Astrid , Salam Alex Paddy , Flahault Antoine , Olliaro Piero L.
Published: September 2021

Background

Research is urgently needed to reduce the morbidity and mortality of Lassa fever (LF), including clinical trials to test new therapies and to verify the efficacy and safety of the only current treatment recommendation, ribavirin, which has a weak clinical evidence base. To help establish a basis for the development of an adaptable, standardised clinical trial methodology, we conducted a systematic review to identify the clinical characteristics and outcomes of LF and describe how LF has historically been defined and assessed in the scientific literature.

Methodology

Primary clinical studies and reports of patients with suspected and confirmed diagnosis of LF published in the peer-reviewed literature before 15 April 2021 were included. Publications were selected following a two-stage screening of abstracts, then full-texts, by two independent reviewers at each stage. Data were extracted, verified, and summarised using descriptive statistics.

Results

147 publications were included, primarily case reports (36%), case series (28%), and cohort studies (20%); only 2 quasi-randomised studies (1%) were found. Data are mostly from Nigeria (52% of individuals, 41% of publications) and Sierra Leone (42% of individuals, 31% of publications).

The results corroborate the World Health Organisation characterisation of LF presentation. However, a broader spectrum of presenting symptoms is evident, such as gastrointestinal illness and other nervous system and musculoskeletal disorders that are not commonly included as indicators of LF.

The overall case fatality ratio was 30% in laboratory-confirmed cases (1896/6373 reported in 109 publications).

Conclusion

Systematic review is an important tool in the clinical characterisation of diseases with limited publications. The results herein provide a more complete understanding of the spectrum of disease which is relevant to clinical trial design. This review demonstrates the need for coordination across the LF research community to generate harmonised research methods that can contribute to building a strong evidence base for new treatments and foster confidence in their integration into clinical care.
Total mercury concentrations in invasive lionfish (Pterois volitans/miles) from the Atlantic coast of Florida
Authors: Johnson Eric G. , Dichiera Angelina , Goldberg Danielle , Swenarton MaryKate , Gelsleichter James
Published: September 2021

Invasive lionfish (Pterois volitans/miles) pose a serious threat to marine ecosystems throughout the western Atlantic Ocean and Caribbean Sea. The development of a fishery for lionfish has been proposed as a strategy for controlling populations; however, there is concern about consumption of this species by humans due to its high trophic position and potential for bioaccumulation of mercury. We analyzed total mercury (THg) in tissues of lionfish from two locations on the east coast of Florida. THg in lionfish increased with size and differed by location and sex. THg was highest in muscle tissue and was strongly positively correlated among tissues. THg in lionfish was lower than other commonly consumed marine fishes, and falls into Florida’s least restrictive advisory level. Consumption of lionfish poses a low risk and concerns over mercury bioaccumulation should not present a significant barrier to lionfish harvest.
Physiological and metabolomic consequences of reduced expression of the Drosophila brummer triglyceride Lipase
Authors: Nazario-Yepiz Nestor O. , Fernández Sobaberas Jaime , Lyman Roberta , Campbell Marion R. , Shankar Vijay , Anholt Robert R. H. , Mackay Trudy F. C.
Published: September 2021

Disruption of lipolysis has widespread effects on intermediary metabolism and organismal phenotypes. Defects in lipolysis can be modeled inDrosophila melanogasterthrough genetic manipulations ofbrummer(bmm), which encodes a triglyceride lipase orthologous to mammalian Adipose Triglyceride Lipase. RNAi-mediated knock-down ofbmmin all tissues or metabolic specific tissues results in reduced locomotor activity, altered sleep patterns and reduced lifespan. Metabolomic analysis on flies in whichbmmis downregulated reveals a marked reduction in medium chain fatty acids, long chain saturated fatty acids and long chain monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fatty acids, and an increase in diacylglycerol levels. Elevated carbohydrate metabolites and tricarboxylic acid intermediates indicate that impairment of fatty acid mobilization as an energy source may result in upregulation of compensatory carbohydrate catabolism.bmmdownregulation also results in elevated levels of serotonin and dopamine neurotransmitters, possibly accounting for the impairment of locomotor activity and sleep patterns. Physiological phenotypes and metabolomic changes upon reduction ofbmmexpression show extensive sexual dimorphism. Altered metabolic states in the Drosophila model are relevant for understanding human metabolic disorders, since pathways of intermediary metabolism are conserved across phyla.
Unsupervised cross-lingual model transfer for named entity recognition with contextualized word representations
Authors: Yan Huijiong , Qian Tao , Xie Liang , Chen Shanguang
Published: September 2021

Named entity recognition (NER) is one fundamental task in the natural language processing (NLP) community. Supervised neural network models based on contextualized word representations can achieve highly-competitive performance, which requires a large-scale manually-annotated corpus for training. While for the resource-scarce languages, the construction of such as corpus is always expensive and time-consuming. Thus, unsupervised cross-lingual transfer is one good solution to address the problem. In this work, we investigate the unsupervised cross-lingual NER with model transfer based on contextualized word representations, which greatly advances the cross-lingual NER performance. We study several model transfer settings of the unsupervised cross-lingual NER, including (1) different types of the pretrained transformer-based language models as input, (2) the exploration strategies of the multilingual contextualized word representations, and (3) multi-source adaption. In particular, we propose an adapter-based word representation method combining with parameter generation network (PGN) better to capture the relationship between the source and target languages. We conduct experiments on a benchmark ConLL dataset involving four languages to simulate the cross-lingual setting. Results show that we can obtain highly-competitive performance by cross-lingual model transfer. In particular, our proposed adapter-based PGN model can lead to significant improvements for cross-lingual NER.
Study on the effect of digital economy on high-quality economic development in China
Authors: Zhang Wei , Zhao Siqi , Wan Xiaoyu , Yao Yuan
Published: September 2021

At present, the digital economy, which takes information technology and data as the key elements, is booming and has become an important force in promoting the economic growth of various countries. In order to explore the current dynamic trend of China’s digital economy development and the impact of the digital economy on the high-quality economic development, this paper measures the digital economic development index of 30 cities in China from the three dimensions of digital infrastructure, digital industry, and digital integration, uses panel data of 30 cities in China from 2015 to 2019 to construct an econometric model for empirical analysis, and verifies the mediating effect of technological progress between the digital economy and high-quality economic development. The results show that (1) The development level of China’s digital economy is increasing year by year, that the growth of digital infrastructure is obvious, and that the development of the digital industry is relatively slow. (2) Digital infrastructure, digital industry and digital integration all have significant positive effects on regional total factor productivity, and the influence coefficients are 0.2452, 0.0773 and 0.3458 respectively. (3) Regarding the transmission mechanism from the digital economy to the high-quality economic development, the study finds that the mediating effect of technological progress is 0.1527, of which the mediating effect of technological progress in the eastern, northeast, central and western regions is 1.70%, 9.25%, 28.89% and 21.22% respectively. (4) From the perspective of spatial distribution, the development level of the digital economy in the eastern region is much higher than that in other non-eastern regions, and the development of digital economy in the eastern region has a higher marginal contribution rate to the improvement of the total factor productivity. This study can provide a theoretical basis and practical support for the government to formulate policies for the development of the digital economy.
How COVID-19 kick-started online learning in medical education—The DigiMed study
Authors: Stoehr Fabian , Müller Lukas , Brady Adrian , Trilla Antoni , Mähringer-Kunz Aline , Hahn Felix , Düber Christoph , Becker Nicole , Wörns Marcus-Alexander , Chapiro Julius , Hinrichs Jan Bernd , Akata Deniz , Ellmann Stephan , Huisman Merel , Koff David , Brinkmann Sebastian , Bamberg Fabian , Zimmermann Oscar , Traikova Nikoleta I. , Marquardt Jens U. , Chang D.-H. , Rengier Fabian , Auer Timo A. , Emrich Tilman , Muehler Felix , Schmidberger Heinz , Baeßler Bettina , dos Santos Daniel Pinto , Kloeckner Roman
Published: September 2021

Background

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic led to far-reaching restrictions of social and professional life, affecting societies all over the world. To contain the virus, medical schools had to restructure their curriculum by switching to online learning. However, only few medical schools had implemented such novel learning concepts. We aimed to evaluate students’ attitudes to online learning to provide a broad scientific basis to guide future development of medical education.

Methods

Overall, 3286 medical students from 12 different countries participated in this cross-sectional, web-based study investigating various aspects of online learning in medical education. On a 7-point Likert scale, participants rated the online learning situation during the pandemic at their medical schools, technical and social aspects, and the current and future role of online learning in medical education.

Results

The majority of medical schools managed the rapid switch to online learning (78%) and most students were satisfied with the quantity (67%) and quality (62%) of the courses. Online learning provided greater flexibility (84%) and led to unchanged or even higher attendance of courses (70%). Possible downsides included motivational problems (42%), insufficient possibilities for interaction with fellow students (67%) and thus the risk of social isolation (64%). The vast majority felt comfortable using the software solutions (80%). Most were convinced that medical education lags behind current capabilities regarding online learning (78%) and estimated the proportion of online learning before the pandemic at only 14%. In order to improve the current curriculum, they wish for a more balanced ratio with at least 40% of online teaching compared to on-site teaching.

Conclusion

This study demonstrates the positive attitude of medical students towards online learning. Furthermore, it reveals a considerable discrepancy between what students demand and what the curriculum offers. Thus, the COVID-19 pandemic might be the long-awaited catalyst for a new “online era” in medical education.
Risk factor for breast cancer development under exposure to bovine leukemia virus in Colombian women: A case-control study
Authors: Olaya-Galán Nury N. , Salas-Cárdenas Sandra P. , Rodriguez-Sarmiento Jorge L. , Ibáñez-Pinilla Milcíades , Monroy Ricardo , Corredor-Figueroa Adriana P. , Rubiano Wilson , de la Peña Jairo , Shen HuaMin , Buehring Gertrude C. , Patarroyo Manuel A. , Gutierrez Maria F.
Published: September 2021

Viruses have been implicated in cancer development in both humans and animals. The role of viruses in cancer is typically to initiate cellular transformation through cellular DNA damage, although specific mechanisms remain unknown. Silent and long-term viral infections need to be present, in order to initiate cancer disease. In efforts to establish a causative role of viruses, first is needed to demonstrate the strength and consistency of associations in different populations. The aim of this study was to determine the association of bovine leukemia virus (BLV), a causative agent of leukemia in cattle, with breast cancer and its biomarkers used as prognosis of the severity of the disease (Ki67, HER2, hormonal receptors) in Colombian women. An unmatched, observational case–control study was conducted among women undergoing breast surgery between 2016–2018. Malignant samples (n = 75) were considered as cases and benign samples (n = 83) as controls. Nested-liquid PCR, in-situ PCR and immunohistochemistry were used for viral detection in blood and breast tissues. For the risk assessment, only BLV positive samples from breast tissues were included in the analysis. BLV was higher in cases group (61.3%) compared with controls (48.2%), with a statistically significant association between the virus and breast cancer in the unconditional logistic regression (adjusted-OR = 2.450,95%CI:1.088–5.517, p = 0.031). In this study, BLV was found in both blood and breast tissues of participants and an association between breast cancer and the virus was confirmed in Colombia, as an intermediate risk factor.
A national survey of hospital readiness during the COVID-19 pandemic in Nigeria
Authors: Ogoina Dimie , Mahmood Dalhat , Oyeyemi Abisoye Sunday , Okoye Ogochukwu Chinedum , Kwaghe Vivian , Habib Zayaid , Unigwe Uche , Iroezindu Michael Onyebuchi , Garbati Musa Abubakar , Rotifa Stella , Adekanmbi Olukemi , Garba Iliyasu , Dayyab Farouq Muhammad , Ibrahim Sanusi Mohammed , Kida Ibrahim Musa , Adamu Adamu , Alasia Datonye , Awang Sati Klein , Ohaju-Obodo John Oghenevwirhe , Usman Rabi , Mohammed Yahaya , Omololu Ayanfe , Tobin Ekaete Alice , Okogbenin Sylvanus , Asogun Danny , Kelly Iraoyah , Waziri Bala , Nauzo Aliyu Mamman , Jibrin Yusuf , Habib Abdulrazaq Garba
Published: September 2021

Introduction

The COVID-19 pandemic continues to overwhelm health systems across the globe. We aimed to assess the readiness of hospitals in Nigeria to respond to the COVID-19 outbreak.

Method

Between April and October 2020, hospital representatives completed a modified World Health Organisation (WHO) COVID-19 hospital readiness checklist consisting of 13 components and 124 indicators. Readiness scores were classified as adequate (score ≥80%), moderate (score 50–79.9%) and not ready (score <50%).

Results

Among 20 (17 tertiary and three secondary) hospitals from all six geopolitical zones of Nigeria, readiness score ranged from 28.2% to 88.7% (median 68.4%), and only three (15%) hospitals had adequate readiness. There was a median of 15 isolation beds, four ICU beds and four ventilators per hospital, but over 45% of hospitals established isolation facilities and procured ventilators after the onset of COVID-19. Of the 13 readiness components, the lowest readiness scores were reported for surge capacity (61.1%), human resources (59.1%), staff welfare (50%) and availability of critical items (47.7%).

Conclusion

Most hospitals in Nigeria were not adequately prepared to respond to the COVID-19 outbreak. Current efforts to strengthen hospital preparedness should prioritize challenges related to surge capacity, critical care for COVID-19 patients, and staff welfare and protection.
Global sales and operations planning: A multinational manufacturing company perspective
Authors: Seeling Marcelo Xavier , Kreuter Tobias , Scavarda Luiz Felipe , Thomé Antônio Márcio Tavares , Hellingrath Bernd
Published: September 2021

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the global Sales and Operations Planning (S&OP) process and investigate the steps to support consolidated business planning in worldwide operations and large-scale supply chains. The paper conducts a case study at a multinational manufacturing company applying an abductive approach. It combines the deductive logic from theory and the inductive logic from field observation in an attempt to elaborate further on theory on global S&OP. The analysis is structured and guided by a novel framework for global S&OP, which is developed based on the theoretical background and the case study findings. The research findings characterise the S&OP process for global operations and identify challenges related to the need to synchronise the subsidiaries’ S&OP efforts worldwide to deal with different contingencies of these subsidiaries, and to manage and analyse a large amount of information gathered. The research reveals how the subsidiaries’ performance is analysed by top executives along the global S&OP process, feeding strategic initiatives in the organisation and identifying business opportunities like benchmarking among subsidiaries, synergies with other management practices, and global gains. This paper offers a novel investigation of the global steps on S&OP in a real-life setting, offering a well-documented characterisation of the process that goes beyond the traditional local approach. Moreover, it is the first study to reveal challenges and expected outcomes of such a global perspective for S&OP. The theoretical advancements of S&OP research offered herein aid scholars, opening avenues for middle-range theorising, highlighting the cross-disciplinary nature of the domain, and discussing the use of concepts from related disciplines like Economics, Psychology, and Information Systems. The research findings can also assist executives, especially from multinational manufacturers, in their efforts to consolidate global planning.
Estimating income-related and area-based inequalities in mental health among nationally representative adolescents in Australia: The concentration index approach
Authors: Islam Md Irteja , Ormsby Gail M. , Kabir Enamul , Khanam Rasheda
Published: September 2021

Despite the awareness of the importance of mental health problems among adolescents in developed countries like Australia, inequality has not been widely researched. This study, is therefore, aimed to measure and compare household income-related and area-based socioeconomic inequalities in mental health problems (bullying victimization, mental disorders–single and multiple, self-harm and suicidality–ideation, plan and attempt) among Australian adolescents aged 12–17 years. Young Minds Matter (YMM)—the 2nd national cross-sectional mental health and well-being survey involving Australian children and adolescents conducted in 2013–14, was used in this study to select data for adolescents aged 12–17 years (n = 2521). Outcome variables included: bullying, mental disorders, self-harm, and suicidal ideation, plan and attempt. The Erreygers’s corrected concentration index (CI) approach was used to measure the socioeconomic inequalities in mental health problems using two separate rank variables–equivalised household income quintiles and area-based Index of Relative Socioeconomic Advantage and Disadvantage (IRSAD) quintiles. The prevalence of mental health problems in the previous 12-months among these study participants were: bullying victimization (31.1%, 95% CI: 29%-33%), mental disorder (22.9%, 95% CI: 21%-24%), self-harm (9.1%, 95% CI: 8%-10%), suicidal ideation (8.5%, 95% CI: 7%-10%), suicidal plan (5.9%, 95% CI: 5%-7%) and suicidal attempt (2.8%, 95% CI: 2%-3%). The concentration indices (CIs) were statistically significant for bullying victimization (CI = -0.049, p = 0.020), multiple mental disorders (CI = -0.088, p = <0.001), suicidal ideation (CI = -0.023, p = 0.047) and suicidal attempt (CI = -0.021, p = 0.002), implying pro-poor socioeconomic inequalities based on equivalized household income quintiles. Similar findings revealed when adolescents mental health inequalities calculated on the basis of area based IRSAD (Index of Relative Socio-economic Advantage and Disadvantage) quintiles. Overall, adolescents from economically worse-off families experienced more mental health-related problems compared to those from economically better-off families. This has implications for prevention strategies and government policy in order to promote mental health and provide equitable healthcare facility.
Cholesterol efflux capacity and its association with prevalent metabolic syndrome in a multi-ethnic population (Dallas Heart Study)
Authors: Akinmolayemi Oludamilola , Saldanha Suzanne , Joshi Parag H. , Deodhar Sneha , Ayers Colby R. , Neeland Ian J. , Rohatgi Anand
Published: September 2021

Metabolic syndrome (MetS) is characterized by adiposity and atherogenic dyslipidemia consisting of elevated triglyceride and decreased high density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C) levels however, cholesterol concentration alone does not reflect HDL functionality. Cholesterol efflux capacity (CEC) captures a key anti-atherosclerotic function of HDL; studies linking CEC to MetS have yielded inconsistent findings and lacked racial/ethnic diversity. The aim of this study was to evaluate the association between CEC and MetS in a large multi-ethnic population utilizing two different CEC assays interrogating overlapping but distinct reverse cholesterol transport pathways. A cross-sectional study was performed using the Dallas Heart Study cohort and cholesterol efflux was measured with radiolabeled and fluorescent cholesterol assays. The relationship between CEC and MetS was assessed using multivariable regression analyses. A total of 2241 participants were included (mean age was 50 years; 38% men and 53% Blacks). CEC was independently and inversely associated with MetS irrespective of efflux assay (CEC-radiolabeled, adjusted OR 0·71 [95% CI 0·65–0·80]. CEC-fluorescent, adjusted OR 0·85 [95% CI 0·77–0·94]). Both CEC measures were inversely associated with waist circumference and directly associated with HDL-C but not with other MetS components. There was an interaction by sex but not by race such that the inverse associations between CEC and MetS were somewhat attenuated in men (OR 0·86, 95%CI 0·74–1·01). In this large multi-ethnic cohort, impaired CEC is linked to MetS irrespective of efflux assay and race/ethnicity but less so among men. Future studies are needed to assess whether CEC mediates the atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease risk of MetS.