bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Polsko-mołdawski konflikt handlowy w latach 1780–1785 a polityka wewnętrzna Stanisława Augusta Poniatowskiego
Authors: Filipczak Witold
Published: February 2022

The conflict over trade between Poland and Moldavia in the 80s of the 18th century has already elicited interest of historians from Poland, Romania and Moldova. The contributions of Jan Reychman, Veniamin Ciobanu and Valentin Arapu are particularly relevant but they do not exhaust the analyzed topic. The time-frame of the article is 1780–1785 although the origin of the conflict dates back to 1778 when Constantin Moruzi forbade the import of Polish vodka to Moldavia. The year 1785 accepted as the final element in the time-frame does to mean that the conflict came to an end then. After Antoni Dzieduszycki had left Istanbul in 1780, the Polish affairs were taken over by Stanisław Pichelstein, whose official role was that of translator (dragoman) and Head of School of Oriental Languages. The article ends with the accession to the throne of Alexandru Mavrocordat II, who succeeded Alexandru Mavrocordat I; the ensuing response of the Polish political elite to this event is also analyzed. The sources that constitute the basis for the analysis come from The Central Archives of Historical Records in Warsaw, and they include the correspondence of Pichelstein with Stanisław August’s cabinet and Department of Foreign Affairs of the Permanent Council. Another important source that has not been used so far is Stanisław August’s domestic correspondence from the Princes Czartoryski Library in Cracow. It shows how the Polish court tried to make use of the contacts established with hospodars by the high-ranking officials from the voivodeships bordering on Moldavia (i.e. the voivodeships of Braclaw and Podolia) who made demands on Jassy. On behalf of the nobility in their voivodeships, the aforementioned officials demanded that restrictions on the vodka trade should be lifted. This was done in strict agreement with the recommendations from Warsaw.
Formalny i nieformalny status sekretarza polskiego korpusu dyplomatycznego na przykładzie misji w Kopenhadze (1792–1795)
Authors: Czekalska Adrianna
Published: February 2022

When the Great Sejm in 1788 decided to appoint a state foreign service, there was a problem of lack of appropriate officials and right. There were no regulations specific to the work of Polish diplomats posted to foreign royal courts. An example of how imprecise the organizational assumptions of Polish foreign policy resumed in December 1788 is the status of a secretary of the legation, who could act as “charge d’affaires” formal and informal. The article does not exhaust the entire subject matter, but merely mentions some of the problems that the representative with an unregulated diplomatic position had to deal with.
SLIS Director's Report
Authors: Creel Stacy
Published: February 2022

Welcome to the Fall/Winter issue of SLIS Connecting. Since Dr. Welsh’s retirement in August of 2021, it has been a busy and exciting fall and start of the spring semesters with the return to in-person activities on campus and continued growth and productivity in SLIS.
A Quantitative Analysis of Digitized Archival Collections from Mississippi’s Public Universities
Authors: Parrish Sarah
Published: February 2022

This study provides a quantitative analysis of the digitized archival collections made available online by public, 4-year universities in Mississippi to determine how many collections have been digitized and to reveal which topics are most represented in digitized archival materials.
Impacto de la satisfacción laboral en la intención de rotación del personal millennials en los fast food de Lima Centro
Authors:   , Aucalla Taira Sheyla Eunice , Benavente Cordova Olenka Valeria
Published: February 2022

En el sector Fast Food, se reconoce a la rotación laboral como una relevante problemática, no obstante, esta variable es precedida por la intención que tiene el trabajador de desistir de manera voluntaria a una compañía. Por esta razón, el presente estudio busca identificar cuál es el impacto de la satisfacción laboral y la relación que mantiene con la intención de rotación del personal Millennials en los Fast Food de Lima Centro. Esta investigación aplicó un diseño de enfoque no experimental y transversal en el que se obtuvo una muestra de 372 colaboradores Millennials que laboran en los Fast Food de Lima Centro con el objetivo de identificar el impacto de la satisfacción laboral de estos colaboradores y la relación de esta variable con la intención de rotación del personal. De este modo, se empleó como instrumento a la “Escala de Satisfacción Laboral SL-SPC” (Palma, 1999) y el cuestionario de “Intención de Rotación Laboral” (Jacobo & Roodt, 2008). Se pudo identificar que las siete dimensiones de satisfacción laboral presentan relaciones negativas e impactan significativamente en la intención laboral del colaborador. En otras palabras, a medida que se incrementa el nivel de satisfacción del trabajador Millennials en los Fast Food de Lima Centro, se reduce su intención de rotación laboral. Cabe mencionar, que el objetivo de la investigación es contribuir con estudios del sector fast food y el segmento millenials, ya que actualmente no se cuenta con información o estudios suficientes en Perú que hagan hincapié a los temas desarrollados en el transcurso de la tesis.
La contratación temporal en el RD Ley 32/2021
Authors: Nieto Rojas Patricia
Published: February 2022

La reforma laboral, en una clara apuesta por mejorar la estabilidad en el empleo, no solo modiﬁca los supuestos en los que cabe acudir a un contrato de duración determinada, sino que establece nuevas reglas para potenciar la con-tratación indeﬁnida. El presente artículo analizará el alcance de estas nove-dades, tanto en lo relativo a las modiﬁcaciones efectuadas en el art. 15.5 ET respecto al encadenamiento de contratos, pero también las medidas que en el ámbito sancionador se han adoptado para lograr este objetivo. Concretamente, la cotización adicional para los contratos de muy corta duración prevista en el art. 151 Ley General de Seguridad Social, así como las novedades incorporadas en la LISOS.
Del contrato fijo de obra al contrato indefinido adscrito a obra. Un cambio meramente estético a efectos estadísticos
Authors: Aragón Gómez Cristina
Published: February 2022

El Real Decreto Ley 32/2021 deroga, con efectos del día 30-3-2022, el contrato por obra o servicio determinado. Y esta decisión legislativa tiene un claro impacto en el sector de la construcción, en el que el contrato por obra es la modalidad contractual más empleada. Los datos así lo corroboran: según las estadísticas del SEPE correspondientes a 2021, del 100% de los contratos que se suscribieron a lo largo del año, cerca del 75% revestía esta concreta modalidad. Pero la posibilidad de acudir a este tipo de contrato desaparece con motivo de la reforma. En contrapartida, el legislador prevé un régimen particularizado de extinción contractual aplicable a aquellos trabajadores indeﬁnidos que se en-cuentren adscritos a obra. El objeto del presente artículo se centra, precisamente, en analizar el régimen jurídico de este contrato indeﬁnido adscrito a obra. Pero, para entender el alcance de la reforma y su concreto impacto en el sector de la construcción, resulta necesario entender el punto del que partimos. Y de ahí que, con carácter previo, nos detengamos en el estudio del contrato ﬁjo de obra, en sus orígenes y en su regulación convencional.
MENGEMBANGKAN KEMAMPUAN MENGENAL KONSEP DAN LAMBANG BILANGAN MENGGUNAKAN KOMBINASI MODEL KEARIPAN
Authors: Afrida Suci , Agusta Akhmad Riandy , Pratiwi Diani Ayu
Published: February 2022

AbstrakMatematika dasar harus dikenalkan pada anak salah satunya adalah lambang bilangan. Hal tersebut membantu anak memiliki kesiapan memasuki SD dan mendukung kemampuan berpikir logis sistematis. Masalah penelitian yaitu pengetahuan konsep dan lambang bilangan yang masih rendah. Salah satu upayanya adalah menggunakan kombinasi Kearipan (model MaKE A match, metode pembeRIan tugas dan media paPAN flannel). Adapun tujuan penelitian yaitu untuk mengetahui peningkatan aktivitas guru, motivasi anak, aktivitas serta hasil perkembangan. Instrumen yang digunakan yaitu lembar pengamatan terkait aktivitas guru, motivasi anak, aktivitas anak dan hasil perkembangan anak. Sedangkan analisis data menggunakan deskriptif kualitatif. Temuan ini menunjukkan aktivitas guru mengalami peningkatan mencapai kategori sangat baik. Motivasi belajar secara klasikal mencapai persentase 92% dengan kategori sangat aktif. Aktivitas anak mencapai persentase 93% kategori sangat tinggi. Dan hasil perkembangan anak secara klasikal meningkat dari pertemuan I 51% menjadi 96% anak sudah berkembang pada pertemuan IV. Disimpulkan bahwa kombinasi Kearipan berhasil memperbaiki kualitas guru, meningkatkan aktivitas anak, motivasi serta hasil perkembangan yang optimal.Kata Kunci: Mengenal konsep dan lambang bilangan, Model Make a Match, Metode Pemberian Tugas dan Media Papan Flannel.                                                                                AbstractBasic mathematics must be introduced to children, one of which is number symbols. This helps children have readiness to enter elementary school and supports the ability to think logically systematically. The research problem is that the knowledge of concepts and symbols of numbers is still low. One of the efforts is to use a combination of Kearipan (Make a match model, assignment method and flannel board media). The purpose of the study was to determine the increase in teacher activity, children's motivation, activities and developmental outcomes. The instrument used is an observation sheet related to teacher activities, children's motivation, children's activities and child development outcomes. While the data analysis used descriptive qualitative. This finding shows that teacher activity has increased to reach the very good category. Classical learning motivation reaches a percentage of 92% with the very active category. Children's activities reached a percentage of 93% in the very high category. And the results of children's development classically increased from the first meeting 51% to 96% children have developed at the fourth meeting. It was concluded that the combination of Wisdom succeeded in improving the quality of teachers, increasing children's activities, motivation and optimal development results.Keywords: Recognize concepts and symbols of numbers, Make a Match Model, Assignment Method and Flannel Board Media
Transformation of the EU Monetary Policy in an Age of Financial Instability
Authors: Bobrov A.
Published: February 2022

Challenges the European economy began to face 12 years ago raised the question about actions European Central Bank (ECB) have to undertake to maintain the financial sustainability, considering its objective to ensure price stability while coping with a changed economic environment. Provision that the ECB is obliged to take efforts to ensure financial stability as well as potentially serious consequences of crisis’ impact on the banking system and industrial production, led to an expansion of its role beyond standard monetary policy measures, with the unconventional steps being taken in addition to conventional to combat the adverse impact of the financial crisis. While reducing the interest rate, ECB also provided a cheap financial capital for banks via fixed-rate “Long Term Refinancing Operations” (LTROs), and three “Covered Bond Purchase Programmes” (CBPP). Purchases of debt securities were also conducted via “Securities Market Programme” (SMP) and, later, with then ECB’s President Mario Draghi declaring that ECB will do “whatever it takes to preserve the euro”, possibility of their increase was announced with the start of “Outright Monetary Transactions” (OMT) Programme. A mere announcement of the OMT was enough to calm financial markets, as none of the eurozone countries applied for financial support within this programme’s framework. Then ECB proceeded with a full-fledged quantitative easing, starting to buy sovereign bonds under its Public Sector Purchase Programme (PSPP), having spent 2.6 trillion € on its implementation. Understanding that a monetary union without an efficient banking union is unacceptably dangerous, the European Banking Union, under which supervision of largest eurozone banks has transferred directly to the ECB, was progressively established. While ECB’s anti-crisis policies achieved their goals, prolongation of the strategy it adopted may create new risks for the financial stability of the euro area, such as excessive dependence of credit institutions on monetary support and excessive inflationary risks under a zero interest-rate policy. Still, EU institutions’ coordinated financial management played an important role in overcoming the existing turbulence, with fiscal and monetary policy measures reinforcing each other.
Applying TRL Scale for Public Funding of R&D and Innovation in OECD Countries
Authors: Bogacheva O. , Smorodinov O.
Published: February 2022

The article describes evolution of Technology Readiness Level (TRL) scale and analyzes prospects of using TRL methodology as an instrument of public financing of R&D and innovation in OECD. It is noted that TRL was first applied at the end of 1960s by NASA, where it was used as a means of measuring progress in technology development. In the beginning of 2000s, it has become a widespread project management tool. Advantages and limitations of the TRL scale application in R&D project management are revealed in the article. In 2010s, several countries and regions started using TRL methodology in different capacity – as an instrument of public funding of national innovation systems. EU also announced plans to build TRL into the foundation of its new innovation policy. The plans were partially implemented in the subsequent EU Framework program Horizon 2020. Application of TRL scale was limited to tender documents and applications for project funding. It was not applied in the program budget planning or in assessment of project results. The authors claim that in order to use TRL methodology in public funding at full length, it is necessary to create certain conditions. The most important of them are: a} clear definition of the stages (types) and results of scientific and technical activities in accordance with the TRL methodology and linking them with the instruments of public support; b) development and application of appropriate number of industry-specific TRL scales; c) wider usage of TRL methodology and other indices of readiness in planning, implementation and integral evaluation of the results of R&D projects; d) introduction of TRL methodology into national systems of accounting and reporting on R&D projects and development of science, technology and innovation sphere.
COVID-DenseNet: A Deep Learning Architecture to Detect COVID-19 from Chest Radiology Images
Authors: Islam Md Mohaiminul , Hannan Tanveer , Sarker Laboni , Ahmed Zakaria
Published: February 2022

COVID-19 has a severe risk of spreading rapidly, the quick identification of which is essential. In this regard, chest radiology images have proven to be a practical screening approach for COVID-19 aﬀected patients. This study proposes a deep learning-based approach using Densenet-121 to detect COVID-19 patients eﬀectively. We have trained and tested our model on the COVIDx dataset and performed both 2-class and 3-class classification, achieving 96.49% and 93.71% accuracy, respectively. By successfully utilizing transfer learning, we achieve comparable performance to the state-of-the-art method while using 15x fewer model parameters. Moreover, we performed an interpretability analysis using Grad-CAM to highlight the most significant image regions at test time. Finally, we developed a website that takes chest radiology images as input and detects the presence of COVID-19 or pneumonia and a heatmap highlighting the infected regions. Source code for reproducing results and model weights are available.
The Application of a Behavior-Based Safety Program at Power Plant Sites: A Pre-Post Study
Authors: Yang Jeongmo , Kwon YoungGuk
Published: February 2022

Background: It is necessary to apply a behavior-based safety (BBS) program to prevent at-risk behavior. An effective BBS program requires the implementation of not only behavioral definitions and a customized critical behavior checklist (CBC) but also observations of behavior, coupled with customized interventions at power plants. Method: In this study, a customized CBC and behavioral definition were developed through a review of five different sites that previously used a CBC. The rules of observation, flow, and target were established to initiate the observations. Customized interventions were selected to increase safe behaviors. CBC scoring was used to evaluate observed safe behaviors for three years. Recognized safe behaviors were evaluated with a questionnaire that included four items each for conformity and participation behaviors and were then analyzed through a factor analysis and a t-test. The questionnaires were conducted three months before and after the implementation of the BBS program. Results: The customized CBC, behavioral definition, and interventions were effective, such that observed safe behaviors and the levels of workers’ recognized safe behaviors increased. Conclusion: The application of the BBS program was found to increase the observed and recognized safe behaviors. Therefore, the program applied to this site can help increase safe behaviors at other identical or similar sites, as well as prevent an accident, which also corresponds with the results of prior studies.
Ethical Issues in AI-enabled Disease Surveillance: Perspectives from Global Health
Authors: Borda Ann , Molnar Andreea , Neesham Cristina , Kostkova Patty
Published: February 2022

Infectious diseases, as COVID-19 is proving, pose a global health threat in an interconnected world. In the last 20 years, resistant infectious diseases such as SARS, MERS, H1N1, Ebola, Zika and now COVID-19 have been impacting global health defences, and aggressively flourishing within the rise of global travel, urbanization, climate change and ecological degradation. In parallel, this extraordinary episode in global human health highlights the potential for artificial intelligence (AI)-enabled disease surveillance to collect and analyse vast amounts of unstructured and real-time data to inform epidemiological and public health emergency responses. The uses of AI in these dynamic environments are increasingly complex, challenging the potential for human autonomous decisions. In this context, our study of qualitative perspectives will consider a responsible AI framework to explore its potential application to disease surveillance in a global health context. Thus far, there is a gap in the literature in considering these multiple and interconnected levels of disease surveillance and emergency health management through the lens of a responsible AI framework.
Disinformation in Social Networks and Bots: Simulated Scenarios of Its Spread from System Dynamics
Authors: Guzmán Rincón Alfredo , Carrillo Barbosa Ruby Lorena , Segovia-García Nuria , Africano-Franco David Ricardo
Published: February 2022

Social networks have become the scenario with the greatest potential for the circulation of disinformation, hence there is a growing interest in understanding how this type of information is spread, especially in relation to the mechanisms used by disinformation agents such as bots, trolls, among others. In this scenario, the potential of bots to facilitate the spread of disinformation is recognised, however, the analysis of how they do this is still in its initial stages. Taking into consideration what was previously stated, this paper aimed to model and simulate scenarios of disinformation propagation in social networks caused by bots based on the dynamics of this mechanism documented in the literature. For achieving the purpose, System dynamics was used as the main modelling technique. The results present a mathematical model, as far as disinformation by this mechanism is concerned, and the simulations carried out against the increase in the rate of activation and deactivation of bots. Thus, the preponderant role of social networks in controlling disinformation through this mechanism, and the potential of bots to affect citizens, is recognised.
Explaining Cannabis Use by Adolescents in Tarragona (Spain): Correlational and Fuzzy Set Qualitative Comparative Analyses
Authors: Andres-Sanchez Jorge de , Belzunegui-Eraso Angel
Published: February 2022

The literature on substance use usually extracts conclusions from data with correlational methods. Our study shows the usefulness of complementing ordered logistic regression (OLR) and fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) to assess factors inducing cannabis consumption in a sample of 1,935 teenagers. OLR showed a significant influence of gender (odd ratio (OR) =0.383, p<0.0001), parental monitoring (OR=0.587, p=0.0201); religiousness (OR=0.476, p=0.006); parental tolerance to substance use (OR=42.01, p<0.0001) and having close peers that consume substances (OR=5.60, p<0.0001). FsQCA has allowed fitting linkages between factors from a complementary perspective. (1) Coverage (cov) and consistency (cons) attained by solutions explaining use (cons=0.808, cov=0.357) are clearly lower than by recipes of non-use (cons=0.952, cov=0.869) (2) The interaction of gender, a tolerant family to use and the attitude toward substances by peers is very consistent to explain cannabis use. (3) The most important recipe explaining resistance to cannabis is simply parental disagreement with substance consumption (cons=0.956, cov=0.861) (4) Factors as gender, religiosity, parental monitoring and age show also a relevant impact on attitude toward cannabis use. However, whereas some of them impact symmetrically on use and non-use this does not follow in factors such as parental monitoring or age.
Membranous Glomerulonephritis: A Retrospective Study on Prognostic Outcome
Authors: Maifata Sadiq , Abd Ghani Fauzah , Hod Rafidah , Zakaria Nor Fadhlina
Published: February 2022

Background: Membranous glomerulonephritis (MGN) is one of the most common causes of nephrotic syndrome in non-diabetic adults, accounting for up to one-third of biopsy diagnostics in some regions. A watchful waiting strategy has been adopted to accurately assess the success of MGN. In this study, we predict prognostic risk factors for primary MGN patients for effective intervention and prognosis. Materials and Methods: This is a retrospective study design involving 125 biopsy-proven MGN subjects on follow-up from January 2012 to October 2019 in Hospital Serdang and Hospital Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Result and Conclusion: After the median follow-up of 36 (15.0-57.0) months, 26 (20.8%) consisting of 17 (13.6%) primary MGN and 9 (7.2%) secondary MGN subjects achieved complete remission while 17 (13.6%) and 10 (8.0%) of primary and secondary MGN subjects respectively achieved spontaneous remission. Subjects with nephrotic range proteinuria have 2.917 odds more at risk of primary MGN while subjects with hypertension have 2.417 odds risk of primary MGN compared to those with no hypertension at presentation. Multiple logistic regression models retained only factors directly associated with MGN with only nephrotic range proteinuria associated with primary MGN. Those with nephrotic range proteinuria were 3.04 times the odds of primary MGN when compared with those without nephrotic syndrome (95% C. I = 1.089, 8.472). The nephrotic syndrome could be used to determine the prognosis in patients with primary MGN especially those at risk of end-stage kidney disease.
A Homomorphic Digital Signature Scheme for the Internet of Things
Authors: Hamdi Mohamed , Pirbhulal Sandeep , Abie Habtamu
Published: February 2022

In this paper, we address the problem of compatibility between digital signature schemes and in-network aggregation approaches. In the IoT world, the gateways alter the signed network flows when performing in-network aggregation. Therefore, existing conventional approaches are not suitable for verifying the authenticity of the original flows. This raises the need for energy-effective and secure schemes that enable the destination to validate aggregated network flows. In this regard, a lightweight homomorphic signature scheme is proposed which supports the implementation of aggregation procedures without affecting the verification process. We demonstrate the unforgeability and the privacy of our scheme. We also perform an analytical study of its energy-efficiency. The results suggest that the proposed scheme considerably decreases the processing overhead of the existing set-homomorphic signature schemes. Moreover, it does not add any communication overhead to traditional (non-homomorphic) signature schemes. This, in turn, improves the energy consumption by 30% compared to existing homomorphic signature techniques.
Weather Research and Forecasting Model Sensitivity to Choice of Parameterization over Ethiopia
Authors: Shiferaw Andualem , Tadesse Tsegaye , Rowe Clinton
Published: February 2022

A 3-month (June-August) regime of the year 2002 summer rainfall (JJA2002) was simulated with 30 physics combinations using the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model at 12-km horizontal grid resolution. The objective is to examine summer rainfall sensitivity to parameterization of microphysical, convective, and boundary layer processes and identify the best possible combination of parameterization options that perform relatively better in simulating the spatial and temporal distribution of summer rains over Ethiopia. The WRF simulated rainfall was evaluated against station data and satellite rainfall products (CHIRPS and ENACTS) using mean absolute error, Pearson and Pattern correlation coefficients (PCC), pattern correlation, and error in a number of rainy days as evaluation metrics. Summer rainfall is found to be most sensitive to the choice of cumulus parameterization and least sensitive to cloud microphysics. All simulations captured the spatial distribution of mean seasonal precipitation with PCC ranging from 0.89-0.94. However, all simulations overestimated precipitation amount and number of rainy days. Out of the 30, the simulations that use a combination of Grell-3D cumulus scheme, ACM2 boundary layer, Lin Microphysics, Dudhai shortwave radiation, and RRTM longwave radiation scheme ranked the top and provided the most realistic simulation in terms of amount and spatio-temporal distribution of summer rainfall.
Approach for CO2 Emission Related Cost Functions in the Context of Trade-Off Investigations of a Future Energy Efficient European Aviation
Authors: Förster Peter , Yildiz Bekir , Feuerle Thomas , Hecker Peter
Published: February 2022

Aircraft emissions represent a relevant amount of human induced CO2. Globally, up to 2.5 per cent of such emissions stem from the aviation industry. In order to investigate the effects within the atmosphere, realistic flight profiles are necessary to provide quantitatively tangible values of emissions. The flight profiles and the according fuel consumption can be calculated by using waypoints from flight plans and Base of Aircraft Data (BADA). This paper presents an approach to refine the fuel consumption by integrating the passenger load into the calculation. Since effects of emissions have to be assessed on a greater scale, such as on the European air traffic network, the presented approach provides cost functions for CO2 emissions for different aircraft types and load factors. The cost functions were derived by means of regression analyses of BADA based calculated flight profiles with a step size of one second. The calculations are based on real historic traffic scenarios of several days. The derived aircraft specific fuel burn coefficients enable a simple and efficient integration of CO2 estimations depending on the flight distance, load factor and aircraft type. This can be applied to large traffic scenarios to also study different set-ups such as travel restrictions, other disruptions or an alteration in the traffic system as a whole. In order to enable the assessment of further aspects of such changes to the European air traffic system at large and to foster reproducibility and comparability of related studies, we provide further general-purpose cost estimation functions for several important key characteristics. Besides fuel consumption, we develop cost estimations for air navigation fees and maintenance for conventional aircraft. Those functions are also provided for the design concept of a short-range all-electric aircraft. This propeller aircraft features game-changing technologies such as active laminar flow control, active load alleviation and advanced materials and structure concepts. The approaches discussed in this paper will focus on the generic aspects of aircraft related costs, which can be derived from general available data. For the sake of reproducibility, the results will be made publicly available.
The Long-Term Clinical Results of Total Talar Replacement at 10 Years or More After Surgery
Authors: Morita Shigeki , Taniguchi Akira , Miyamoto Takuma , Kurokawa Hiroaki , Takakura Yoshiyuki , Takakura Yoshinori , Tanaka Yasuhito
Published: February 2022

Background:

Total talar replacement has been reported to have favorable short-term and intermediate-term results for the treatment of osteonecrosis of the talus. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the long-term clinical results of total talar replacement for a minimum of 10 years after the surgical procedure.

Methods:

From October 2005 to April 2011, 19 ankles in 18 patients (1 male and 17 female) were treated using a total talar prosthesis for osteonecrosis of the talus. The median follow-up period was 152 months (interquartile range [IQR], 138, 160 months). The Ankle Osteoarthritis Scale (AOS) score, the Japanese Society for Surgery of the Foot (JSSF) Ankle-Hindfoot Scale score, and the presence of osteophytes and degenerative changes in the adjacent joints were assessed preoperatively and at the final follow-up. Subsidence of the prosthesis was also assessed at the earliest opportunity for full weight-bearing and the final follow-up. The postoperative range of motion of the ankle was assessed at the final follow-up.

Results:

The median scores for all subscales of the AOS significantly improved. The median JSSF Ankle-Hindfoot Scale score significantly improved from 58 (IQR, 55, 59.5) to 97 (IQR, 87, 99.5). In the subcategories of this scale, the median pain score improved from 20 (IQR, 20, 20) to 40 (IQR, 30, 40), and the median function score improved from 28 (IQR, 26, 30.5) to 47 (IQR, 47, 50). The median postoperative range of motion of the ankle was 45° (IQR, 42.5°, 55°). Subsidence of the implant was not recognized at the final follow-up (p = 0.083). Proliferation of osteophytes and degenerative changes in the adjacent joints did not affect the overall results.

Conclusions:

The customized alumina ceramic total talar prosthesis produced stable clinical outcomes over 10 years, and the patients treated with total talar replacement showed favorable clinical results over this time frame.

Level of Evidence:

Therapeutic Level IV. See Instructions for Authors for a complete description of levels of evidence.
Neoproterozoic Metabasalts of the Tyya Complex of the Olokit Rift Trough (Baikal–Muya Belt): Composition, U–Pb Age, Isotope-Geochemical Characteristics, and Geodynamic Effects
Authors: Orsoev D.A. , Gordienko I.V. , Bulgatov A.N. , Badmatsyrenova R.A. , Dril’ S.I. , Possokhov V.F.
Published: February 2022

—We present results of new mineralogical, geochemical, geochronological, and isotope (Sm–Nd, Rb–Sr, and O) studies of the volcanic rocks of the Tyya complex in the Olokit trough. These are normal tholeiitic basalts and scarcer basaltic andesites forming a fractionated series with mg# = 45–65, medium TiO2 contents (0.73–1.62 wt.%), low P2O5 contents (0.04–0.25 wt.%), and a significant domination of Na over K (Na2O/K2O = 2.1–50.0). The rocks are metamorphosed to greenschists, which are composed of chlorite, actinolite, epidote, and albite with quartz, titanite, ilmenite, and magnetite impurity. The metabasalts have is an age of 915 ± 5 Ma (zircon U–Pb dating) and are characterized by wide variations in εNd(T) (–3.5 to –11.9) and 87Sr/86Sr (0.70602–0.70732) and high δ18O values (9.0–15.2‰) as compared to the mantle ones. According to the isotope-geochemical characteristics, the studied metabasalts have features of both IAB and E-MORB. The Tyya metabasalts might have resulted from the melting of the lithospheric mantle with a subductional component. Comparison of the studied rocks with volcanic rocks of recent geodynamic settings shows their similarity to basalts of back-arc basins. The Tyya metabasalts might belong to a back-arc basin of the late Mesoproterozoic Nyurundukan island arc system.
Lithological Characteristic of Bazhenov Formation Sections in Central and Southeastern Regions of Western Siberia according to Logging Data Set
Authors: Temnikova E.Yu. , Fedoseev A.A. , Kazanenkov V.A. , Grubas S.I. , Glinskikh V.N. , Lezhnin D.S.
Published: February 2022

—The paper presents the results of the development and use of numerical methods for interpreting logging data in the Bazhenov Formation interval (Upper Jurassic). We consider the example of wells located in the central and southeastern regions of Western Siberia. Based on the machine learning method (artificial neural networks), and taking into account the results of detailed lithological and geochemical core studies, a computational algorithm has been developed and tested to evaluate the material composition of the Bazhenov Formation rocks. In our studies, we employ the classification of the Bazhenov Formation lithotypes, which is centered on the modern concept of rock-forming mineral and mineraloid components distribution. In the examined borehole sections, the lithological composition of the Bazhenov Formation rocks has been determined, along with revealing the features of its lateral change in the central part of the Salym field, in the Surgut arch region, and in the southeast of Western Siberia.
CureCancer Digital Platform in Clinical Oncology Practice Facilitates Patients’ Self-data Recording, Communicating, Treatment Adherence, “Distancing Interventions” During Covid-19 and Reduces Costs. A Feasibility and Satisfaction Study.
Authors: Galiti Dimitra , Linardou Helena , Agelaki Sofia , Karampeazis Athanasios , Tsoukalas Nikolaos , Psyrri Amanda , Karamouzis Michalis , Syrigos Konstantinos , Ardavanis Alexandros , Athanasiadis Ilias , Arvanitou Eleni , Sgourou Stavroula , Kouloulias Vasileios , Mala Anastasia , Vallilas Christos , Boukovinas Ioannis
Published: February 2022

Background: Globally 43.8 million people live with cancer. A 60% increase of cancer cases is estimated by 2040, with 29.4 million patients per year requiring therapy. Optimization of cancer management, using digital innovation, is urgently needed. CureCancer is a patient-centric/driven platform, which enables patients to self-create their profile, report symptoms, and communicate with physicians. We assessed CureCancer’s feasibility and patients’ and HCPs’ satisfaction. Methods: Patients from 9 Centers were asked to register at CureCancer, upload their data and complete a questionnaire on demographics, disease and treatment characteristics, and their satisfaction. Results: 159 patients were enrolled and 144 (90.6%) registered. 114 of 144 (79.1%), 63 males and 51 females, median age 54.5 years, completed the questionnaire. 64 patients were University and 35 were high School graduates. 46 patients had metastatic disease, 87 were on active treatment and 51 received supportive care. All patients also visited non-oncology HCPs. Nineteen patients changed work status and 49 had children below 24 years. Registration was “very/very much” easy for 98 (86.0 %) patients. File uploading was “very/very much” easy for 47 (41.2%) patients. Over 80% of patients and physicians preferred the digital way. 99 patients and all HCPs will recommend CureCancer to others. Easy data access, improved communication, feeling safe, treatment adherence, interventions from distance, particularly during covid-19 pandemic and saving time and money, were highly commented by patients and HCPs. Conclusion: CureCancer was feasible, and patients and HCPs were satisfied. Patients were successful to report information on their demographics, disease and treatment characteristics. They also disclosed the need to visit non-oncology HCPs during their cancer treatment and other socioeconomic issues. Integration of CureCancer in the routine practice is expected to improve cancer care and reduce cancer costs. Patients’ self-reporting, with CureCancer, can increase the accuracy of clinical trial results and map social/work/economic issues following cancer diagnosis to assist health care policy.
Histone demethylase KDM5B catalyzed H3K4me3 demethylation to promote differentiation of bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells into cardiomyocytes
Authors: Wang Zhen , Zhong Chenlu , Li Hongxiao
Published: February 2022

BACKGROUND: Studies have shown that histone H3 methylation is involved in regulating the differentiation of Bone Marrow Mesenchymal Stem Cells (BMSCs). KDM5B can specifically reduce the level of histone 3 lysine 4 trimethylation (H3K4me3), thereby activating the expression of related genes and participating in biological processes such as cell differentiation, embryonic development and tumor formation. Whether KDM5B is involved in the regulation of BMSCs differentiation into cardiomyocytes through the above manner has not been reported.OBJECTIVE: To investigate the effect of KDM5B on the induction and differentiation of swine BMSCs into myocardial cells in vitro.METHODS: Swine bone marrow BMSCs were isolated and cultured, and the overexpression, interference expression and blank vector of KMD5B were constructed and transfected by lentivirus. BMSCs was induced to differentiate into cardiomyocytes by 5-azacytidine (5-AZA) in vitro, and the differentiation efficiency was compared by immunofluorescence, RT-PCR, Western Blot and whole-cell patch clamp detection.RESULT: Compared with the control group, the expression levels of histone H3K4me3 and pluripotency gene Nanog in KDM5B overexpression group were significantly decreased, while the expression level of key myocardial gene HCN4 and myocardial marker gene α-Actin and cTNT were significantly increased, and the Na+ current density on the surface of differentiated myocardial cell membrane was significantly increased. Meanwhile, the corresponding results of the KDM5B silent expression group were just opposite. CONCLUSIONS: It indicated that enhanced KDM5B expression could promote the differentiation of BMSCs into cardiomyocytes and improve the differentiation efficiency by controlling H3K4 methylation levels.
A Collective Control Scheme to Solve Time-varying Formation Control Problem of Multiple Autonomous Underwater Vehicles With Time Delay
Authors: Jia Yongnan , Zhang Weicun
Published: February 2022

Due to the limitation of complexity and uncertainty of the underwater environment, the related technologies of autonomous underwater vehicles(AUVs) develop slowly. Therefore, an ingenious solution characterized by low cost, convenient operation, and low individual intelligence is urgently required. Inspired from these collective behaviours of gregarious creatures in nature, the coordination control problem of multiple AUVs is endowed with new research significance to complete complex underwater operational tasks. This paper aims to propose a general control scheme to solve the time-varying formation control problem of multiple AUVs that take into account the communication time delay. Firstly, a complete six-degrees-of-freedom dynamical model is applied instead of the real AUVs in the following theoretical analysis and simulation verification. Then, a metric-based nearest neighbour interacted rule is introduced to build the communication network of the system. Periodic sampling technology and zero-order hold loop are adopted to simplify the communication problem of time delay. Based on the above dynamical model and communication mechanism, a distributed collective control protocol is proposed to enable these AUVs asymptotically converge to a desired geometrical configuration on the condition that the initial communication network is undirected and connected. During the evolutionary process, no collision happens between any two AUVs. The formation configuration can be maintained until a simple switching controller works for the configuration transformation tasks. Finally, the simulation results proved the effectiveness of the above collective control scheme and visually exhibited the three-dimensional dynamical evolutionary process.
The Effect Of Femoral Nerve Block Versus Adductor Canal Block On The Quality Of Early Recovery After Revision Total Knee Arthroplasty, A Retrospective Study
Authors: AlJa'bari Aboud , Sheikh Khalid AL
Published: February 2022

Background: Multimodal pain analgesia strategies are common in perioperative management of total knee arthroplasty (TKA), although the role of adductor canal blocks (ACB) versus femoral nerve block on early postoperative recovery for revision knee surgery is not investigated.Aim: The purpose of this study is to independently evaluate the effect of ACB on short-term postoperative outcomes including (1) length of stay (LOS), (2) postoperative narcotic utilization, and (3) function with physical therapy in revision TKA.Methods: We retrospectively identified a cohort study of consecutive 40 patients from January 2021 to July 2021 who had undergone unilateral revision TKA using a single-shot ACB (19 patients) vs femoral nerve block (21 patients) under spinal anesthesia (hyperbaric 0.5% Marcaine 2.5 ml and 20 microgram fentanyl) in addition to a standardized multimodal pain analgesia protocol. These 2 groups were compared using independent sample t-tests with primary end points of interest being distance ambulated after surgery, and inpatient narcotic use.Results: Quadriceps strength was better preserved in adductor group than in femoral group. Walking meters and going upstairs were better results in adductor group. IV morphine consumption within the first 48 hours period were less in adductor group comparing to femoral group. Conclusion: Adductor nerve block showed better early recovery in revision TKA when comparing to femoral nerve block (FNB).
What Are The Determinants Of Parametrial Invasion In Patients With Early Stage Cervical Cancer: A Cross Sectional Study
Authors: Hoorshad Niloufar , Zamani Narges , SheikhHasani Shahrzad , Poopak Amirhossein , Sharifi Amirsina
Published: February 2022

Background: There was an increase in number of patients presented with early-stage cervical cancer (CC). Tumors with favorable pathological features might be candidates for less radical surgery.Methods: We retrospectively reviewed 700 patients with histologically confirmed CC between January 2011 and March 2020. Chi-square, Fisher's exact tests and multivariate logistic regression analysis were used to assess relations between parametrial involvement (PI) and clinic-pathological variables.Results: Total number of 132 patients with stage IA to IIA were eligible to participate. Squamous cell carcinoma was reported in 100 (75.8%) patients, adenocarcinoma and other tumor pathologies were found in 24(18.2%) and 8(6.1%), respectively. Considering the FIGO stage, 11 (8.4%) patients had IA, 111 (83%%) IB and 10 (7.6%) IIA. Nine patients (6.8%) had PI on permanent pathologic report. Univariate analysis demonstrated that following variables were statistically different between patients with and without PI: age ≥ 50, tumor size ≥ 3cm, lower segment involvement, poorly differentiated pathology, deep stromal invasion, pelvic lymph node, lympho-vascular involvement and positive surgical margin (all p values < 0.05). Among these variables only tumor size ≥ 3 cm (OR: 2.1, 95% CI: 1.11-4.16, p value: 0.02), deep stromal invasion (OR: 2.2, 95% CI: 1.9-7.43, p value: 0.02) and positive surgical margin (OR: 5.1, 95% CI: 3.97-11.15, p value: 0.008) were independent risk factor of PI in multivariate analysis.Conclusions: Early stage CC can be surgically approached in a more conservative manner if patients have tumor size < 3 cm and do not have deep stromal invasion in conization.
Combination of a New Metaheuristic Algorithm Based on Cooperative Grouper Fish - Octopus and DBSCAN Algorithm to Automatic Clustering
Authors: Balavand Alireza
Published: February 2022

Density-based spatial clustering of applications with noise (DBSCAN) has been used to cluster data with arbitrary shapes which clustering is done based on the density among objects in data. Given that DBSCAN is a proper tool for identifying outliers and clustering non-convex data, it can be used for automatic clustering of non-convex data and covered the weakness of most automatic clustering algorithms in not recognizing non-convex clusters. So, in this paper, a new automatic clustering algorithm is introduced which is a combination of DBSCAN and grouper fish - octopus (GFO) algorithm. GFO-DBSCAN finds the best number of clusters in two main steps in an iterative manner. In the first step, the values of \(esp\) and \(minpts\) are generated by GFO algorithm and in the second step, the clustering of data is performed using DBSCAN algorithm with \(eps\) and \(minpts\) that are generated in the previous step. After each clustering, using correct data labels, and cluster centroids, the Calinski-Harabasz (CH) index is calculated. Finally, after passing some iterations of GFO, the best number of clusters is reported. In this study, three categories of data are used to measure the performance of the GFO-DBSCAN algorithm. Also, DBSCAN is compared with ACDE, DCPSO, and GCUK algorithms. According to the results, GFO-DBSCAN has achieved the optimal number of clusters in most data and has outperformed other well-known algorithms.