bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Analysis of Changes in Antibiotic Use Patterns in Korean Hospitals during the COVID-19 Pandemic
Authors: Kim Bongyoung , Hwang Hyeonjun , Chae Jungmi , Kim Yun Seop , Kim Dong-Sook
Published: January 2023

With the onset of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, changes in patient care and antibiotic use have occurred in hospitals. The data of the National Health Insurance System’s claims of inpatients from all hospitals in Korea between January 2019 and December 2020 were obtained from the Health Insurance Review & Assessment Service and analyzed. The trend in the use of all antibacterial agents in both hospitals declined for the total number of COVID-19 patients at the bottom 10% and those in the top 10%. Specifically, a decreasing trend in the use of broad-spectrum antibacterial agents predominantly prescribed for community-acquired cases and narrow-spectrum beta-lactam agents were observed in both hospitals. In the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic, the total use of antibacterial agents has gradually decreased among patients with pneumonia and those with severe COVID-19. In contrast, its use has increased gradually among those with mild to moderate COVID-19. A decreasing trend in overall antibiotic use was observed during the COVID-19 pandemic, and an increasing trend in antibiotic use was observed in patients with mild to moderate COVID-19 in Korean hospitals.
R-Curve Behavior of Polyhedral Oligomeric Silsesquioxane (POSS)–Epoxy Nanocomposites
Authors: Mishra Kunal , Singh Raman P.
Published: January 2023

Polyhedral oligomeric silsesquioxane (POSS) is a suitable nanoscale reinforcement for thermosetting polymers, such as epoxy resin systems in order to modify its mechanical, thermal and chemical properties. The inclusion of POSS in the epoxy resin at higher loading (greater than 1 wt.%); however, it introduces the ductility during the fracture behavior of these nanocomposites. Consequently, the J-integral is used to quantify the fracture behavior of these materials and characterize the crack growth resistance curve against stable crack growth. A range of nanocomposites is prepared by adding 0.5, 1, 3, 5, and 8 wt.% of glycidyl POSS into DGEBF epoxy resin cured with an amine-based curing agent. From fracture toughness experiments, the load-displacement result confirms that when the POSS reinforcement is greater than 1 wt.%, the fracture behavior of the nanocomposite changes from brittle to ductile. For both brittle and ductile nanocomposites, the addition of POSS molecules improves the crack initiation toughness. The development of POSS–POSS compliant domains, reported previously, is responsible for this change in the failure behavior. The fractured images of POSS–epoxy nanocomposites, obtained by using scanning electron microscopy, show that the increase in fracture resistance at higher values of POSS loading occurs due to the extensive shear yielding. Meanwhile, the increased fracture toughness at lower values of POSS loading occurs due to crack pinning and crack deflection.
A New C2-Symmetric Atropisomeric Thiophene-Based Monomer for Inherently Chiral Electroactive Materials: Synthesis, HPLC Resolution, and Absolute Configuration Assignment
Authors: Rosetti Alessia , Apolloni Giulio , Villani Claudio , Benincori Tiziana , Cirilli Roberto
Published: January 2023

Herein, we report on the synthesis and high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) resolution of a new atropisomeric C2-symmetry chiral monomer based on the 3,3′-bithiophene core, which was developed to produce novel, inherently oligomeric chiral electroactive materials. The analytical enantioseparation was optimized using the cellulose-type Chiralpak IB-3 column and a mixture of n-hexane–methanol–dichloromethane 90:5:5 (v/v/v) as the mobile phase. During the scale-up of the enantioseparation analytical conditions to a semipreparative level, remarkable deformations in the HPLC profile, such as peak splitting and plateau zones between enantiomeric peaks, were observed. We demonstrate the effects of sample diluent as they relate to distorted peak profiles, as well as provide experimental solutions to prevent the disturbing phenomenon. The optimized chromatographic conditions were exploited to collect milligram amounts of the enantiopure sample, which was submitted to chiroptical and stereochemical characterization studies.
Surface Discharge Characteristics and Numerical Simulation in C4F7N/CO2 Mixture
Authors: Yan Xinfeng , Zhou Xiaoli , Li Ze , Qian Yong , Sheng Gehao
Published: January 2023

The environmentally friendly gas C4F7N has been considered a potential replacement gas for SF6 due to its excellent insulation. At present, research on C4F7N and its mixture mainly focuses on its insulation performance, but few people study its surface discharge mechanism and variation law. In order to study the surface discharge characteristics of the C4F7N/CO2 mixture, a fluid model of surface discharge was established and simulated by COMSOL, which was used to study the mechanism of streamers during surface discharge, fit the expression of the maximum photon flux, analyze the influence of voltage and the dielectric constant of the insulator on discharge, and compare the surface discharge of C4F7N/CO2 with that of SF6, providing the theoretical basis for the optical detection and reliable diagnosis of partial discharge. The results show that, under the same discharge conditions, the optical phenomenon of C4F7N/CO2 discharge along the surface is more obvious than that of SF6, and as the applied voltage or the dielectric constant of the insulator increases, the streamer develops more quickly, the electric field becomes stronger, and the photon flux increases.
Panchromatic and Multispectral Image Fusion Combining GIHS, NSST, and PCA
Authors: Xu Lina , Xie Guangqi , Zhou Sitong
Published: January 2023

Spatial and spectral information are essential sources of information in remote sensing applications, and the fusion of panchromatic and multispectral images effectively combines the advantages of both. Due to the existence of two main classes of fusion methods—component substitution (CS) and multi-resolution analysis (MRA), which have different advantages—mixed approaches are possible. This paper proposes a fusion algorithm that combines the advantages of generalized intensity–hue–saturation (GIHS) and non-subsampled shearlet transform (NSST) with principal component analysis (PCA) technology to extract more spatial information. Therefore, compared with the traditional algorithms, the algorithm in this paper uses PCA transformation to obtain spatial structure components from PAN and MS, which can effectively inject spatial information while maintaining spectral information with high fidelity. First, PCA is applied to each band of low-resolution multispectral (MS) images and panchromatic (PAN) images to obtain the first principal component and to calculate the intensity of MS. Then, the PAN image is fused with the first principal component using NSST, and the fused image is used to replace the original intensity component. Finally, a fused image is obtained using the GIHS algorithm. Using the urban, plants and water, farmland, and desert images from GeoEye-1, WorldView-4, GaoFen-7 (GF-7), and Gaofen Multi-Mode (GFDM) as experimental data, this fusion method was tested using the evaluation mode with references and the evaluation mode without references and was compared with five other classic fusion algorithms. The results showed that the algorithms in this paper had better fusion performances in both spectral preservation and spatial information incorporation.
Design of Zoom Optical System from Visible to NIR-II for Vivo Fluorescence Imaging Device
Authors: Guo Shuaicheng , Fang Lu , Chen Fuchun
Published: January 2023

Macro vivo fluorescence imaging is becoming more and more important in the medical field. It is also necessary to design the optical design system for the visible light of the NIR-II detector. This paper discusses the design method of the wide spectrum achromatic optical system from visible light to NIR-II. Based on ZEMAX, a wide spectrum zoom system is designed to freely observe experimental targets in the fields of view of 3.1–18.6°. The four components layout was adopted by the wide spectrum zoom system, which is suitable for 8.2 mm (1/2 inch) CCD, with an f-number of 5.0~6.0, zoom range of 25 mm~150 mm, working spectral band of 400 nm~1700 nm, full field MTF ≥ 0.3 at the spatial frequency of 100 lp/mm, and the maximum distortion of ≤±3%. All optical elements adopt the standard spherical, which can correct all kinds of aberrations well and meet each part’s basic processing requirements.
Effects of a Home-Based Foot–Ankle Exercise Program with Educational Booklet for Foot Dysfunctions in People with Diabetic Neuropathy: Results of the FOCA-II Randomized Controlled Clinical Trial
Authors: Silva Érica Q. , Veríssimo Jady L. , Ferreira Jane S. S. P. , Cruvinel-Júnior Ronaldo H. , Monteiro Renan L. , Suda Eneida Y. , Sacco Isabel C. N.
Published: January 2023

Exercise rehabilitation and education are important strategies for preventing the progression of diabetic neuropathy-related musculoskeletal deficits. The purpose of this randomized controlled trial was to investigate the effect of an 8-week home-based foot–ankle exercise program using an educational booklet on clinical outcomes (foot muscle strength and functionality; functional balance; diabetic neuropathy symptoms and severity; tactile and vibratory sensitivities; plantar pressure distribution; and foot–ankle, knee, and hip biomechanics during gait). Fifty participants with neuropathy were randomly allocated into an intervention group (59.1 ± 6.4 years, 23.5 ± 4.8 kg/m2, males = 6, females = 19) that performed the exercises for 8 weeks and a control group (56.5 ± 9.4 years, 22.9 ± 3.6 kg/m2, males = 5, females = 20) that received usual care recommendations. Generalized estimating equation method and intention-to-treat approaches were adopted. No significant differences were found for any clinical outcome after 8 weeks. Heel contact area increased in the intervention group compared to controls (p = 0.043, mean difference = 2.7 cm) and heel peak pressure was increased in controls compared to intervention (group effect p = 0.020, mean difference = -64.16 kPa) at 8 weeks. Controls showed increased joint moments for the hip at heel strike (p = 0.007) and for the knee and hip at push off over 8 and 16 weeks (p < 0.001 and p = 0.009, respectively). Although the intervention is easy to perform and showed a good adherence (72%), home-based foot–ankle exercise programs are unlikely to sufficiently modify the main risk factors related to foot ulcers and to change foot–ankle kinematics and kinetics.
Towards a Provably Secure Authentication Protocol for Fog-Driven IoT-Based Systems
Authors: Rana Minahil , Mahmood Khalid , Saleem Muhammad Asad , Al-Turjman Fadi , Kolhar Manjur Sayyadbadasha , Altrjman Chadi
Published: January 2023

The emergence of fog-based Internet of Things (IoT) systems have played a significant role in enhancing the applicability of the IoT paradigm. In such systems, fog-nodes are proficient enough to retain, process and transmit the data coming from IoT devices. Nevertheless, as an extension of cloud computing, inheriting the security and privacy concerns of cloud computing is also inevitable in fog-based IoT systems. To deal with such challenges, a diverse range of security solutions are reported in the literature. However, most of them have several limitations (i.e., vulnerability to known security attacks and high computation overhead) that curtail their practical implementation applicability. Keeping these limitations in mind, this paper propose a privacy-preserving hash-based authenticated key agreement protocol using XOR and concatenation operations for fog-driven IoT systems. Using healthcare as a case study, the security of the novel protocol is evaluated by using informal and formal security analysis. In order to obtain the experimental results, the key cryptographic operations used at the user, fog node and cloud server-side are implemented on a mobile device, Arduino and cloud server, respectively. Findings from the performance evaluation results show that the proposed protocol has the least computation cost compared to several related competing protocols.
Comparative Study of Blue Light with Ultraviolet (UVC) Radiation on Betacoronavirus 1
Authors: Vashishtha Kritika , Xi Fengfeng , Dharmalingam Priya , Douplik Alexandre
Published: January 2023

The ongoing coronavirus pandemic requires more effective disinfection methods. Disinfection using ultraviolet light (UV), especially longer UVC wavelengths, such as 254 and 270/280 nm, has been proven to have virucidal properties, but its adverse effects on human skin and eyes limit its use to enclosed, unoccupied spaces. Several studies have shown the effectiveness of blue light (405 nm) against bacteria and fungi, but the virucidal property at 405 nm has not been much investigated. Based on previous studies, visible light mediates inactivation by absorbing the porphyrins and reacting with oxygen to produce reactive oxygen species (ROS). This causes oxidative damage to biomolecules, such as proteins, lipids, and nucleic acids, essential constituents of any virus. The virucidal potential of visible light has been speculated because the virus lacks porphyrins. This study demonstrated porphyrin-independent viral inactivation and conducted a comparative analysis of the effectiveness at 405 nm against other UVC wavelengths. The betacoronavirus 1 (strain OC43) was exposed to 405, 270/280, 254, and 222 nm, and its efficacy was determined using a median tissue culture infectious dose, i.e., TCID50. The results support the disinfection potential of visible light technology by providing a quantitative effect that can serve as the basic groundwork for future visible light inactivation technologies. In the future, blue light technology usage can be widened to hospitals, public places, aircraft cabins, and/or infectious laboratories for disinfection purposes.
Design and Security Analysis of Cryptosystems
Authors: Kim Suhri , Hong Seokhie
Published: January 2023

The development of cryptography is closely related to the development of computers [...]
Liquid Crystal-Tuned Planar Optics in Terahertz Range
Authors: Yu Hongguan , Wang Huacai , Wang Qiguang , Ge Shijun , Hu Wei
Published: January 2023

Recently, terahertz waves of higher frequencies compared to microwave and radio frequency have shown great potential in radar detection and high-speed wireless communication. To spatially control the wavefront of terahertz beams, various novel components, such as terahertz filters, polarization converters and lenses, have been investigated. Metamaterials and metasurfaces have become the most promising technique for the free manipulation of terahertz waves. Metadevices integrated with liquid crystals have been widely used in active terahertz devices. In this review, the birefringence of liquid crystals in the terahertz band and terahertz devices based on liquid crystals are summarized. By integrating liquid crystals with plasmonic metamaterials, the functions become dynamically adjustable and are reconstructed. Utilizing liquid crystals to change the resonance of metamaterials, tunable filters, absorbers, and programmable metasurfaces are realized. To solve the problem of low efficiency, terahertz wavefront shaping devices based on dielectric metasurfaces and liquid crystals, such as a variable deflection angle grating and zoom metalenses, are presented. Finally, we discuss and anticipate the future developments of liquid-crystal-integrated meta-devices, which will inspire broad applications in terahertz communication and imaging.
Spontaneous Epileptic Recordings from hiPSC-Derived Cortical Neurons Cultured with a Human Epileptic Brain Biopsy on a Multi Electrode Array
Authors: Hu Michel H. Y. , Frimat Jean-Philippe , Rijkers Kim , Schijns Olaf E. M. G. , van den Maagdenberg Arn M. J. M. , Dings Jim T. A. , Luttge Regina , Hoogland Govert
Published: January 2023

A growing societal awareness is calling upon scientists to reconsider the use of animals in research, which stimulates the development of translational in vitro models. The physiological and architectural interactions between different cell types within an organ present a challenge to these models, particularly for a complex organ such as the brain. Thus far, in vitro brain models mostly consist of a single cell type and demonstrate little predictive value. Here, we present a co-culture of an epileptic human neocortical biopsy on a layer of human induced pluripotent stem cell (hiPSC)-derived cortical neurons. The activity of the cortical neurons was recorded by a 120-electrode multi-electrode array. Recordings were obtained at 0, 3, and 6 days after assembly and compared to those obtained from cortical neurons without a biopsy. On all three recording days, the hybrid model displayed a firing rate, burst behavior, number of isolated spikes, inter-spike interval, and network bursting pattern that aligns with the characteristics of an epileptic network as reported by others. Thus, this novel model may be a non-animal, translational alternative for testing new therapies up to six days after resection.
Reservoir Characteristics and Their Controlling Factors in Siliceous Shales of the Upper Permian Dalong Formation, Western Hubei Province, South China
Authors: Duan Ke , Xie Tong , Wang Yi , Zhang Yanlin , Shi Wanzhong , Lu Yongchao
Published: January 2023

To evaluate the reservoir characteristics of siliceous shale in the Dalong Formation within the late Permian intra-platform rift trough in Western Hubei (China), we studied a drill core from well ED-2 in Western Hubei. To analyze the physical characteristics, pore structure, methane adsorption performance, and their influences on the siliceous shale reservoir, we performed X-ray diffraction, total organic carbon (TOC) content, vitrinite reflectance (Ro, indicating thermal evolution), total porosity and permeability, field emission scanning electron microscopy, CO2 and N2 physical adsorption, and methane isothermal adsorption analyses, among others. Our results show that the Dalong Formation in Western Hubei is an organic-rich (2.6–14.3 wt.%), highly thermally evolved (Ro = 2.59–2.76%), siliceous shale containing mainly type-I and type-II1 organic matter. The Dalong siliceous shale has low porosity and permeability and belongs to a larger reservoir with low horizontal permeability (0.002–335.209 mD) and porosity (1.2–7.8%). Pores in the shale are mainly organic, inorganic, and microfractures; the organic pores are very developed. The pore volume and specific surface area of the shale are mainly due to micropores and mesopores and are positively correlated with TOC and clay mineral contents and weakly negatively correlated with quartz and carbonate contents. The micropores and mesopores are well developed, improving the methane adsorption capacity, which, in turn, is strongly positively correlated with TOC content. Comprehensive analysis shows that the high organic matter content of the Dalong siliceous shale has the greatest influence on its pore structure; the many organic pores generated after hydrocarbon generation have controlled the development of micropores and mesopores, which is conducive to the adsorption and storage of shale gas. The development of brittle minerals resistant to compaction, such as siliceous minerals, helps preserve organic pores. This study is informative for basin-scale petroleum system investigations, which are essential for understanding oil and gas exploration possibilities and regional petroleum systems.
Reclaimed Salt-Affected Soils Can Effectively Contribute to Carbon Sequestration and Food Grain Production: Evidence from Pakistan
Authors: Farooqi Zia Ur Rahman , Sabir Muhammad , Ahmad Hamaad Raza , Shahbaz Muhammad , Smith Jo
Published: January 2023

Salt-affected soil reclamation provides opportunities for crop production and carbon sequestration. In arid regions such as Pakistan, limited studies have been reported involving soil reclamation and crop production under wheat–maize rotation, but no study has reported predictions on long-term carbon sequestration in reclaimed soils for the treatments used in this study. Thus, a field-scale fallow period and crop production experiment was conducted for wheat–maize rotation on salt-affected soils in Pakistan for 3 years to check the effectiveness of organic amendments for reclamation of the salt-affected soils, carbon sequestration and food grain production. Treatments used were the control (with no additional amendments to reduce salinity), gypsum alone and gypsum in combination with different organic amendments (poultry manure, green manure, and farmyard manure). The treatment with gypsum in combination with farmyard manure was most effective at increasing soil carbon (+169% over the three-year period of the trial). The maximum wheat yield was also recorded in year 3 with gypsum in combination with farmyard manure (51%), while the effect of green manure combined with gypsum also showed a significant increase in maize yield in year 3 (49%). Long-term simulations suggested that the treatments would all have a significant impact on carbon sequestration, with soil C increasing at a steady rate from 0.53% in the control to 0.86% with gypsum alone, 1.25% with added poultry manure, 1.69% with green manure and 2.29% with farmyard manure. It is concluded that food crops can be produced from freshly reclaimed salt-affected soils, and this can have added long-term benefits of carbon sequestration and climate change mitigation.
Reference Values for Daily Physical Activity Measured with Accelerometers in a Danish Background Population between 18 and 80 Years of Age
Authors: Schrøder Christine Krogsgaard , Tønning Lisa Urup , Tjur Marianne , Kristensen Pia Kjær , Mechlenburg Inger
Published: January 2023

Physical activity provides essential information to assess general health and evaluate the outcome of interventions. However, evaluation of physical activity necessitates reference values for comparison. The current study aimed to present reference values for accelerometer-based data on physical activity in a background population. We conducted a population-based cross-sectional study using accelerometer-based data on physical activity and self-reported data on demographics and health from a cohort of randomly selected individuals of 18–80 years of age registered in the Danish Civil Registration System (CRS) (n = 242). Participants took an average of 6095 daily steps, had an average cadence of 98.5, spent 3.7 h standing, 1.4 h walking, 3.8 min cycling, 7.0 h in sedentary activities, and had 43 sit to stand transfers. The results varied when examining sex and individual age groups. Our findings are important to clinical practice and research, as they provide sex- and age-specific reference values to enable comparison of daily physical activity levels.
Phytochemical Elucidation and Antioxidant Activity of Seeds from Three Prickly Pear (Opuntia ficus-indica L.) Cultivars from Algeria
Authors: Bouaouich Abderrahmene , Bouguerche Faiza , Mahiaoui Houda , Peron Gregorio , Bendif Hamdi
Published: January 2023

In this study, the characterization of fatty acids and secondary metabolites in seeds of three cultivars of Opuntia ficus-indica L. (O. ficus-indica, yellow, orange, and green) harvested from the Souk Ahras area in Northeast Algeria was performed. The antioxidant activity of seed extracts was also assessed by using two methods, namely FRAP and DPPH tests. Results show that total phenolic content (TPC) ranged from 63.02 to 81.80 mg gallic acid equivalents (GAE)/100 g of seeds. The yellow cultivar had the highest TPC, followed by the orange and green cultivars. Concerning flavonoids and tannins, the orange cultivar showed higher concentrations, corresponding to 2.97 mg quercetin equivalent (QE)/100 g and 5.60 mg catechin equivalent (CE)/100 g, respectively. Analysis of the seed extracts by HPLC revealed the presence of phenolic compounds, including gallic acid and chlorogenic acid, while the GC analysis of oil showed that prickly pear oil is a major source of essential fatty acids (C18:2). The antioxidant activities of extracts from the three cultivars were comparable. The EC50 for the reduction of ferric iron was almost 0.05 g/mL for all extracts. Regarding the scavenging of DPPH, green and yellow cultivars showed the highest capacity (EC50 = 0.26 g/mL). Linear correlations between the content of some antioxidants (flavonoids, tannins) and different activities were observed, indicating their participation in the latter. Above all, a significant inverse correlation between the total flavonoid content and the EC50 calculated for the reducing activity of seed extracts was observed (r = −0.657; p ≤ 0.05). Overall, the results indicate that the seeds of O. ficus-indica growing in Algeria can be exploited as valuable sources of table oil, cooking oil, and antioxidants.
Flow and Heat Transfer Characteristics of the Turbine Blade Variable Cross-Section Internal Cooling Channel with Turning Vane
Authors: Xu Tao , Shi Dongbo , Zhang Di , Xie Yonghui
Published: January 2023

The gas turbine blades are scoured by high temperature gas sustainedly and long-term in harsh environment. It is of great significance to explore effective cooling methods to lower the turbine blade temperature so as to ensure safe and stable operation of the gas turbine. However, there are few studies on the cooling channel considering the turning vane, variable cross-section characteristics, and rotation effect. In this paper, five kinds of serpentine cooling channel models with variable cross-section properties and different thickness guide vanes are constructed. The effects of different thickness guide vanes on the overall performance of the channel under stationary and rotating conditions are discussed and compared by numerical method. The result shows that when stationary (Re = 10,000–50,000), the turning vane with suitable thickness can increase the Nu/Nu0 by 56.5%. The f/f0 is decreased by 14.2%, and the comprehensive thermal performance is increased by 4.5%. When rotating (Re = 10,000, Ro = 0–0.5), the turning vane with suitable thickness can increase the Nuup/Nu0 and Nuall/Nu0 by 33.0% and 4.0%, respectively. The comprehensive performance of the variable cross-section serpentine channel can be greatly improved by arranging the turning vane structure with appropriate thickness.
A Semantic Model for Enhancing Data-Driven Open Banking Services
Authors: Paneque Manuel , Roldán-García María del Mar , García-Nieto José
Published: January 2023

In current Open Banking services, the European Payment Services Directive (PSD2) allows the secure collection of bank customer information, on their behalf and with their consent, to analyze their financial status and needs. The PSD2 directive has lead to a massive number of daily transactions between Fintech entities which require the automatic management of the data involved, generally coming from multiple and heterogeneous sources and formats. In this context, one of the main challenges lies in defining and implementing common data integration schemes to easily merge them into knowledge-base repositories, hence allowing data reconciliation and sophisticated analysis. In this sense, Semantic Web technologies constitute a suitable framework for the semantic integration of data that makes linking with external sources possible and enhances systematic querying. With this motivation, an ontology approach is proposed in this work to operate as a semantic data mediator in real-world open banking operations. According to semantic reconciliation mechanisms, the underpinning knowledge graph is populated with data involved in PSD2 open banking transactions, which are aligned with information from invoices. A series of semantic rules is defined in this work to show how the financial solvency classification of client entities and transaction concept suggestions can be inferred from the proposed semantic model.
Work-Related Musculoskeletal Disorders of Dance Teachers in Germany: A Retrospective Cross-Sectional Study
Authors: Schmidt Mike , Reer Rüdiger , Groneberg David A. , Holzgreve Fabian , Wanke Eileen M.
Published: January 2023

Maintaining the health of the musculoskeletal system in movement-associated professions, such as dance teachers, is of great importance for a long-lasting professional practice. The aim of this study was to record work-related musculoskeletal disorders and the causes of these disorders for dance teachers in Germany. Using a retrospective cross-sectional survey, data on the occurrence of work-related musculoskeletal disorders were collected from n = 229 dance teachers (n = 181 women) aged 22 to 77 years using an online questionnaire. In addition, differences between sexes and among dance styles were also analysed. The 12-month prevalence was 60.7% (95% CI: 54.0–67.1%), and on average, there were 2.58 disorders per dance teacher per year (95% CI: 2.17–2.99). Work-related musculoskeletal disorders affected male and female dance teachers equally (φ = 0.11, p = 0.088 resp. r = 0.080, p = 0.228). Disorders were mainly registered in the lumbar spine (14.9%) and ankle (12.5%). The joint structures (29.9%) and the musculature (20.9%) were most frequently affected. Specific movements (18.7%) as well as fatigue and overload (15.2%) were mentioned as the most frequent causes irrespective of dance style. Dance teachers were not significantly differently affected for musculoskeletal disorders than the general working German population. Future studies should consider a prospective evaluation of such disorders and develop prevention strategies with consideration of sex- and dance style-specific circumstances.
An Automatic Counting Algorithm for Topographic Maps Based on Videos for Map Management
Authors: Cao Wen , Tian Yuzhen , Tong Xiaochong , Yang Weiming , Guo Congzhou , Zhu Jingwen , Li He , Wang Dali
Published: January 2023

Topographic maps comprise a rich data source for the processing and analysis of geographic information. However, the management of paper topographic maps is still dominated by an inefficient manual method, and there is no counting equipment for topographic maps that is suitable for narrow map warehouse passages. The existing algorithms relating to paper counting require paper hardness and cannot directly obtain the internal information of topographic maps. To address the above problems, using a map inventory machine transformed from a paddle-type paper counting machine to perform a preliminary count and obtain the video data of the counting progress, an automatic counting algorithm for topographic maps for map management is proposed in this study. First, the periodic feature changes of all the targets and each individual target in the videos are analyzed. Second, a deformable parts model accelerated by fast feature pyramids and by reducing the region of interest is used for the object detection of mechanical wheels. The grayscale variance function is selected to quantify the quality change in the images. Finally, a fusion window counting model is constructed with the adaptive window and fixed window methods. The experimental results show that the average counting accuracy of the model is about 95%, which can verify the initial counting results of the machine and provide high-quality keyframes for the subsequent sheet designation recognition.
Data Augmentation Method for Plant Leaf Disease Recognition
Authors: Min Byeongjun , Kim Taehyun , Shin Dongil , Shin Dongkyoo
Published: January 2023

Recently, several plant pathogens have become more active due to temperature increases arising from climate change, which has caused damage to various crops. If climate change continues, it will likely be very difficult to maintain current crop production, and the problem of a shortage of expert manpower is also deepening. Fortunately, research on various early diagnosis systems based on deep learning is actively underway to solve these problems, but the problem of lack of diversity in some hard-to-collect disease samples remains. This imbalanced data increases the bias of machine learning models, causing overfitting problems. In this paper, we propose a data augmentation method based on an image-to-image translation model to solve the bias problem by supplementing these insufficient diseased leaf images. The proposed augmentation method performs translation between healthy and diseased leaf images and utilizes attention mechanisms to create images that reflect more evident disease textures. Through these improvements, we generated a more plausible diseased leaf image compared to existing methods and conducted an experiment to verify whether this data augmentation method could further improve the performance of a classification model for early diagnosis of plants. In the experiment, the PlantVillage dataset was used, and the extended dataset was built using the generated images and original images, and the performance of the classification models was evaluated through the test set.
Animal Pose Estimation Based on 3D Priors
Authors: Dai Xiaowei , Li Shuiwang , Zhao Qijun , Yang Hongyu
Published: January 2023

Animal pose estimation is very useful in analyzing animal behavior, monitoring animal health and moving trajectories, etc. However, occlusions, complex backgrounds, and unconstrained illumination conditions in wild-animal images often lead to large errors in pose estimation, i.e., the detected key points have large deviations from their true positions in 2D images. In this paper, we propose a method to improve animal pose estimation accuracy by exploiting 3D prior constraints. Firstly, we learn the 3D animal pose dictionary, in which each atom provides prior knowledge about 3D animal poses. Secondly, given the initially estimated 2D animal pose in the image, we represent its latent 3D pose with the learned dictionary. Finally, the representation coefficients are optimized to minimize the difference between the initially estimated 2D pose and the 2D projection of the latent 3D pose. Furthermore, we construct 2D and 3D animal pose datasets, which are used to evaluate the algorithm’s performance and learn the 3D pose dictionary, respectively. Our experimental results demonstrate that the proposed method makes good use of the 3D pose knowledge and can effectively improve 2D animal pose estimation.
Triboelectric Charging Behaviors of Polyester Films Doped with Titanium Dioxide Nanoparticles of Various Crystal Structures
Authors: Teramoto Yudai , Ando Keita , Tsukada Satoru , Hoshino Katsuyoshi
Published: January 2023

It is empirically known that titanium dioxide nanoparticles stabilize the contact and frictional charge of the host polymers to which they are added. However, the mechanism for the stabilization process has not yet been elucidated. In this study, polyester films doped with titanium dioxide nanoparticles of different crystalline forms were triboelectrically charged and the effect of humidity on their charging characteristics was subsequently investigated to elucidate the charge stabilization mechanism. Our first finding was that the rutile-, rutile–anatase mixed crystal (P25)-, and amorphous-dominant-type titanium dioxide nanoparticles reduced the sensitivity of the films to humidity (humidity dependence), while the anatase-type titanium dioxide enhanced the humidity dependence. This difference in action was explained by associating it with the different water adsorption forms on the major crystalline surface of each titanium dioxide type. The second finding was that doping with titanium dioxide nanoparticles, particularly rutile and P25 nanoparticles, reduced fluctuations in the amount of tribocharges of the polyester film. This crystalline-form-dependent difference in action was considered to be based on the depth of the electron traps involved in each titanium dioxide type. The above two findings have allowed us to propose the first mechanism of tribocharge stabilization by titanium dioxide.
The Effect of a Static Magnetic Field on microRNA in Relation to the Regulation of the Nrf2 Signaling Pathway in a Fibroblast Cell Line That Had Been Treated with Fluoride Ions
Authors: Kimsa-Dudek Magdalena , Krawczyk Agata , Synowiec-Wojtarowicz Agnieszka
Published: January 2023

Many physical and chemical factors can influence the Nrf2 signaling pathway, and its deregulation has been associated with various disease states. Nrf2 and Keap1 molecules are key elements that regulate the response under cell stress conditions. Hence, the aim of the research was to assess the impact of a static magnetic field that was generated by permanent magnets on the transcriptional activity of the NFE2L2 and KEAP1 genes in a human dermal fibroblast cell line that had been cultured with fluoride ions and in an environment without them. Additionally, our research aimed to answer the question of whether the regulatory RNA molecules—miRNAs—are involved in these effects. Experiments were performed on an NHDF cell line that had been treated with fluoride ions, along with simultaneous exposure to a moderate-intensity static magnetic field. The RT-qPCR method was used to determine the mRNA level of the NFE2L2 and KEAP1 genes and the miRNA level of miR-28-3p, miR-29b-1-5p, miR-141-3p and miR-365a-3p. Our results indicate that fluoride ions influence the Nrf2 signaling pathway and that miRNAs are involved in regulating it. Moreover, the static magnetic field had a beneficial effect on the cells with fluoride-induced oxidative stress due to stimulating the antioxidant defense.
Resonance Detection Method and Realization of Bearing Fault Signal Based on Kalman Filter and Spectrum Analysis
Authors: Chen Xinxin , Sun Shuli
Published: January 2023

The rolling bearing is an important part of mechanical equipment, and its performance significantly affects the quality and life of the mechanical equipment. This article uses the integrated fiber Bragg grating resonant structure sensor excited by periodic micro-shocks caused by micro faults to realize the extraction of information relating to potential faults. Because the fault signal is weak and can easily be interfered with by ambient noise, in order to extract the effective signal, this article determines the autoregressive model of bearing vibration by the final prediction error criterion and the recursive least squares estimation algorithm. The augmented state space model is established based on the autoregressive model. A Kalman filter is used to reduce the noise interference, and then the reduction noisy signal is analyzed by power spectrum and improved autocorrelation envelope spectrum to realize the detection of bearing faults. Through data analysis and method comparison, the proposed improved autocorrelation envelope spectrum analysis can directly extract the bearing fault frequency, which is superior to other methods such as cepstral analysis.
Accurate Encrypted Malicious Traffic Identification via Traffic Interaction Pattern Using Graph Convolutional Network
Authors: Ren Guoqiang , Cheng Guang , Fu Nan
Published: January 2023

Telecommuting and telelearning have gradually become mainstream lifestyles in the post-epidemic era. The extensive interconnection of massive terminals gives attackers more opportunities, which brings more significant challenges to network traffic security analysis. The existing attacks, often using encryption technology and distributed attack methods, increase the number and complexity of attacks. However, the traditional methods need more analysis of encrypted malicious traffic interaction patterns and cannot explore the potential correlations of interaction patterns in a macroscopic and comprehensive manner. Anyway, the changes in interaction patterns caused by attacks also need further study. Therefore, to achieve accurate and effective identification of attacks, it is essential to comprehensively describe the interaction patterns of malicious traffic and portray the relations of interaction patterns with the appearance of attacks. We propose a method for classifying attacks based on the traffic interaction attribute graph, named G-TIAG. At first, the G-TIAG studies interaction patterns of traffic describes the construction rule of the graphs and selects the attributive features of nodes in each graph. Then, it uses a convolutional graph network with a GRU and self-attention to classify benign data and different attacks. Our approach achieved the best classification results, with 89% accuracy and F1-Score, 88% recall, respectively, on publicly available datasets. The improvement is about 7% compared to traditional machine learning classification results and about 6% compared to deep learning classification results, which finally successfully achieved the classification of attacks.
Kinetic Modeling and Analysis of Fuel Element Pneumatic Lifting System in Pebble Bed Reactors
Authors: Shen Peng , Zhang Runfeng , Wang Zhigang , Chen Jiangyi
Published: January 2023

Thousands of fuel elements in pebble-bed reactor are lifted one by one from the bottom to the top of the core by pneumatic conveying every day. Any failure in the transportation process may lead to a safety accident. In order to ensure the safe and reliable operation of the reactor, it is important to model and analyze the motion process of the fuel element. In this paper, the kinetic modeling of the motion process of fuel elements was carried out, and the kinetic model of atypical bends was refined. Then, numerical simulation was used to analyze the motion characteristics of the fuel element in the acceleration-pipe section, vertical lifting-pipe section, and deceleration section, and it was found that with the increase in spherical/pipe-diameter ratio and pipe-inclination angle the acceleration and final velocity of the fuel-element acceleration process was larger, with the increase in spherical/pipe-diameter ratio and the decrease in recovery coefficient the collision frequency between the fuel element and pipe was reduced, and with the decrease in spherical/pipe-diameter ratio and bend radius the deceleration effect of the fuel element was more obvious. Finally, the accuracy of the model was verified on the experimental platform. This study provides several suggestions for the design and structural optimization of the pneumatic lifting system for pebble-bed-reactor fuel elements and provides a direction for subsequent research.
A Lightweight Neural Network-Based Method for Identifying Early-Blight and Late-Blight Leaves of Potato
Authors: Kang Feilong , Li Jia , Wang Chunguang , Wang Fuxiang
Published: January 2023

Crop pests and diseases are one of the most critical disasters that limit agricultural production. In this paper, we trained a lightweight convolutional neural network model and built a Django framework-based potato disease leaf recognition system, which can recognize three types of potato leaf images including early blight, late blight, and healthy. A lightweight, neural network-based model for the identification of early potato leaf diseases significantly reduces the number of model parameters, whereas the accuracy of Top-1 identification is over 93%. We imported the trained model into the Django framework to build a website for a potato early leaf disease identification system, thus providing technical support for the implementation of a mobile-based potato leaf disease identification and early warning system.
JAUNet: A U-Shape Network with Jump Attention for Semantic Segmentation of Road Scenes
Authors: Fan Zhiyong , Liu Kailai , Hou Jianmin , Yan Fei , Zang Qiang
Published: January 2023

The task of complex scene semantic segmentation is to classify and label the scene image pixel by pixel. For the complex image information in autonomous driving scenes, its characteristics such as many kinds of targets and various scene changes make the segmentation task more difficult, making various kinds of FCN-based networks unable to restore the image information well. In contrast, the encoder–decoder network structure represented by SegNet and UNet uses jump connections and other methods to restore image information. Still, its extraction of shallow details is simple and unfocused. In this paper, we propose a U-shaped convolutional neural network with a jump attention mechanism, which is an improved encoder plus decoder structure to achieve semantic segmentation by four times of convolutional downsampling and four transposed convolutional upsamplings while adding a jump attention module in the upsampling process to realize selective extraction of contextual information from high-dimensional features to guide low-dimensional features, improve the fusion of deep and shallow features, and ensure the consistency of the same type of pixel prediction. The CamVid and Cityscapes datasets are sampled for the experiments, and the model ground mIoU evaluation metrics can reach 66.3% and 69.1%. Compared with other mainstream semantic segmentation algorithms, this method is competitive in terms of segmentation performance and model size.
End-of-Life Impact on the Cradle-to-Grave LCA of Light-Duty Commercial Vehicles in Europe
Authors: Accardo Antonella , Dotelli Giovanni , Miretti Federico , Spessa Ezio
Published: January 2023

A cradle-to-grave life cycle assessment focused on end-of-life (EoL) was conducted in this study for three configurations of a light-duty commercial vehicle (LDCV): diesel, compressed natural gas (CNG), and battery electric vehicle (BEV). The aim is to investigate the impact of recycling under two EoL scenarios with different allocation methods. The first is based on the traditional avoided burden method, while the second is based on the circular footprint formula (CFF) developed by the European Commission. For each configuration, a detailed multilevel waste management scheme was developed in compliance with the 2000/53/CE directive and ISO22628 standard. The results showed that the global warming potential (GWP) impact under the CFF method is significantly greater when compared to the avoided burden method because of the A-parameter, which allocates the burdens and benefits between the two connected product systems. Furthermore, in all configurations and scenarios, the benefits due to the avoided production of virgin materials compensate for the recycling burdens within GWP impact. The main drivers of GWP reduction are steel recycling for all of the considered LDCVs, platinum, palladium, and rhodium recycling for the diesel and CNG configurations, and Li-ion battery recycling for the BEV configuration. Finally, the EoL stage significantly reduces the environmental impact of those categories other than GWP.
Sonification of Motor Imagery in the Basketball Jump Shot: Effect on Muscle Activity Amplitude
Authors: Ramezanzade Hesam , Badicu Georgian , Cataldi Stefania , Parimi Fateme , Mohammadzadeh Sahar , Mohamadtaghi Mahya , Zamani Sani Seyed Hojjat , Greco Gianpiero
Published: January 2023

The purpose of this research was to study the effect of AudioVisual pattern on the muscle activity amplitude during mental imagery. For this purpose, 25 female students (20.73 ± 1.56 years old) engaged in mental imagery (internal, external, and kinesthetic) in three conditions: No pattern, Visual pattern, and AudioVisual pattern. The angular velocity of the elbow joint in the basketball jump shot skill was sonified and presented to the subjects as an auditory pattern. The results showed that the muscle activity amplitude in AudioVisual–kinesthetic and AudioVisual–internal (and not external) conditions is higher than for other conditions. Additionally, a positive correlation was observed between Visual–kinesthetic imagery ability and muscle activity amplitude in the AudioVisual pattern condition and in kinesthetic and internal imagery. In addition, the muscle activity amplitude of high and low Visual–kinesthetic imagery ability conditions were only different in the AudioVisual pattern. The superiority of the AudioVisual condition is most likely due to the auditory information presented in this research being closely related to the kinesthetic sense of movement.