bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Activism and Joy: Empowering Students through Affirmations
Authors: Tsui Alice A. , Williamson Eric
Published: April 2023

Many music educators view activism through the gaze and experience of the U.S. civil rights movement and the protests of the 1960s. This article examines how two Brooklyn, New York–based music educators engage in activism in their school communities by centering student identity and cultivating joyful musical experiences. The authors share their individual identities, positionalities, and lived experiences that have inevitably shaped who they are as music educators. These two authors contextualize their school communities and the daily work that occurs in each of their music classrooms that seeks to empower students through culturally responsive and sustaining teaching. This article interrogates their current daily practice as music educators and offers suggestions for individuals who aim to take steps toward meaningful engagement in the necessary work that activism in the music classroom requires.
Finding Clues at the Intersection: Reflections from Two Choral Educators
Authors: Saplan Jace Kaholokula , Holmes Jason Alexander
Published: April 2023

Civil rights advocate and law professor Kimberlé Crenshaw coined the term intersectionality, defining it in 2020 as “a lens, a prism, for seeing the way in which various forms of inequality often operate together and exacerbate each other. We tend to talk about race inequality as separate from inequality based on gender, class, sexuality or immigrant status. What’s often missing is how some people are subject to all of these, and the experience is not just the sum of its parts.” This lens has also expanded to pedagogy and practice, especially as we engage with our responsibility as educators in ensuring that through our content area, we establish equity-centered learning environments for all. In this article, we offer our personal insights as to how intersectionality interrogates our philosophy and practice within the choral arts both within our own identities and the identities of our students.
Comparison of Contraception Method and Associated Risk Among US High School Students
Authors: Dunn Michael S.
Published: April 2023

Adolescent unintentional pregnancy and sexual transmitted infections (STIs) are at an alarming rating in the United States. The factors that contribute to high rates of unintentional pregnancy and STIs among adolescents are lack of contraception use and other risk behaviors. As such, this study sought to assess the relationship between type of contraception used during last sexual intercourse and risk behaviors among high school adolescents. Data for this study were derived from the 2019 Youth Risk Behavior Study (YRBS). A total of 13,677 participants completed the YRBS in 2019. Multiple logistic regression was used to estimate the association between contraceptive type (i.e., condom, oral birth control, withdrawal, no method) and risk behavior. Results found that those students who reported condom use were less likely to engage in certain substance use behaviors and sexual risk taking compared to those who used no contraceptive method, oral birth control, or withdrawal. The results seem to suggest that condom use and risk-taking behaviors are somewhat interconnected in that condom users were found to be more protective in their behaviors.
Are Right-Wing Attitudes and Voting Associated with Having Attended Private School? An Investigation Using the 1970 British Cohort Study
Authors: Wiggins Richard D , Parsons Samantha , Green Francis , Ploubidis George B , Sullivan Alice
Published: April 2023

This article addresses the question of whether attending a private school affects voting behaviour and political attitudes in adulthood in Britain. The analysis is based upon the British Cohort Study, a nationally representative cohort of children born in one week in April 1970. The ‘effect’ of attending a private school on the tendency to vote Conservative in four consecutive General Elections, and on the expression of conservative attitudes in mid-life is assessed using path analysis. The model includes multiple indicators for a range of antecedents: social origins at birth, cultural and material capital, academic achievements and early social class destination. Once these antecedents are included in the model, for both men and women a direct positive relationship remains between attending private school and voting Conservative and holding right-leaning attitudes. The main significance of these findings follows from the high proportion of private school alumni in influential positions in public life.
Diffuse Idiopathic Skeletal Hyperostosis Presenting With Hoarseness—A Case Report
Authors: Shiue Yih , Chang Ting-Shou
Published: April 2023

Unilateral vocal cord paralysis-related voice change is a common presentation in the otorhinolaryngology clinic. The well-known etiology was recurrent laryngeal nerve injury due to surgery, traumatic event, or tumor compression, but there are still other etiologies that could interfere with the route of the recurrence laryngeal nerve and lead to unilateral paralysis of the vocal cord. In this report, we presented a rare case of unilateral vocal cord paralysis resulting in diffuse idiopathic skeletal hyperostosis.
Principals’ Responses to Student Gun Violence Protests: Deter, Manage, or Educate for Democracy?
Authors: Kwako Alexander , Rogers John , Earl Jennifer , Kahne Joseph
Published: April 2023

Context:

School-based student protests have received little scholarly attention, yet they have the potential to impact the school community, students’ civic development, and larger social movements. Principals are key actors in responding to school-based student protests. As school leaders, principals’ actions affect the outcome of student protests and shape many students’ first experiences as activists.

Purpose:

This study examines U.S. public high school principals’ responses to school-based student protests in 2018, a year of heightened protest activity in response to gun violence in schools. The purpose of our study is to understand how a national sample of principals responded to student protests and to quantify general trends in their responses.

Research Design:

Using a mixed methods approach, we surveyed 491 principals during the summer of 2018; follow-up interviews were conducted with 38 principals. Analyses are grounded in the Deter-Manage-Educate framework, a new conceptual framework that we develop in this paper, organized around the three broad goals principals pursue when responding to student protests. Using this framework, we determined how and how many principals deterred, managed, and educated.

Results:

Findings show that very few principals outright deterred student protests. Nearly all principals managed by setting parameters around protests in an effort to balance students’ right to free speech with concerns for order and safety. A majority of principals also educated, using student protest as an opportunity to encourage civic development. Our findings suggest that an important distinction exists between principals who channel students toward (or away from) a particular manner of protest and principals who facilitate reflection to help students realize their own vision of civic engagement.

Implications:

This study has implications not only for principals, but also for district leaders and educational leadership organizations: Although many principals receive support for managing the logistical (and legal) challenges of responding to student protests, more attention needs to be directed toward helping principals leverage the educative opportunities that student protest can provide.
Do Experiences of Success and Failure Influence Beliefs about Inequality? Evidence from Selective University Admission
Authors: Wetter Rebecca , Finger Claudia
Published: April 2023

Previous research suggests that beliefs about inequality are often biased in ways that serve people’s own interests. By contrast, people might uphold system-justifying beliefs, such as meritocratic beliefs. We test these assumptions against real-life experience of highly selective university admission. Using panel data on German medical school applicants allows us to measure belief changes through experiences of success or failure in admission. We find support that self-serving bias in beliefs outweighs the motivation for system justification: success strengthens the belief that admission depends on effort, while failure reinforces the belief that admission depends on luck. These patterns partly manifest themselves in beliefs about societal inequality. Additionally, we argue that previous experiences (long-term experiences of social upbringing and short-term experiences in university admissions) provide a frame for new experiences, examine respective effect heterogeneity, and discuss implications of our findings of diverging paths in inequality beliefs of winners and losers for the persistence of inequality.
An automatic analysis framework for FDOPA PET neuroimaging
Authors: Nordio Giovanna , Easmin Rubaida , Giacomel Alessio , Dipasquale Ottavia , Martins Daniel , Williams Steven , Turkheimer Federico , Howes Oliver , Veronese Mattia ,   and the FDOPA PET imaging working group:, Jauhar Sameer , Rogdaki Maria , McCutcheon Robert , Kaar Stephen , Vano Luke , Rutigliano Grazia , Angelescu Ilinca , Borgan Faith , D’Ambrosio Enrico , Dahoun Tarik , Kim Euitae , Kim Seoyoung , Bloomfield Micheal , Egerton Alice , Demjaha Arsime , Bonoldi Ilaria , Nosarti Chiara , Maccabe James , McGuire Philip , Matthews Julian , Talbot Peter S
Published: April 2023

In this study we evaluate the performance of a fully automated analytical framework for FDOPA PET neuroimaging data, and its sensitivity to demographic and experimental variables and processing parameters. An instance of XNAT imaging platform was used to store the King’s College London institutional brain FDOPA PET imaging archive, alongside individual demographics and clinical information. By re-engineering the historical Matlab-based scripts for FDOPA PET analysis, a fully automated analysis pipeline for imaging processing and data quantification was implemented in Python and integrated in XNAT. The final data repository includes 892 FDOPA PET scans organized from 23 different studies. We found good reproducibility of the data analysis by the automated pipeline (in the striatum for the Kicer: for the controls ICC = 0.71, for the psychotic patients ICC = 0.88). From the demographic and experimental variables assessed, gender was found to most influence striatal dopamine synthesis capacity (F = 10.7, p < 0.001), with women showing greater dopamine synthesis capacity than men. Our automated analysis pipeline represents a valid resourse for standardised and robust quantification of dopamine synthesis capacity using FDOPA PET data. Combining information from different neuroimaging studies has allowed us to test it comprehensively and to validate its replicability and reproducibility performances on a large sample size.
Bayesian controller fusion: Leveraging control priors in deep reinforcement learning for robotics
Authors: Rana Krishan , Dasagi Vibhavari , Haviland Jesse , Talbot Ben , Milford Michael , Sünderhauf Niko
Published: April 2023

We present Bayesian Controller Fusion (BCF): a hybrid control strategy that combines the strengths of traditional hand-crafted controllers and model-free deep reinforcement learning (RL). BCF thrives in the robotics domain, where reliable but suboptimal control priors exist for many tasks, but RL from scratch remains unsafe and data-inefficient. By fusing uncertainty-aware distributional outputs from each system, BCF arbitrates control between them, exploiting their respective strengths. We study BCF on two real-world robotics tasks involving navigation in a vast and long-horizon environment, and a complex reaching task that involves manipulability maximisation. For both these domains, simple handcrafted controllers exist that can solve the task at hand in a risk-averse manner but do not necessarily exhibit the optimal solution given limitations in analytical modelling, controller miscalibration and task variation. As exploration is naturally guided by the prior in the early stages of training, BCF accelerates learning, while substantially improving beyond the performance of the control prior, as the policy gains more experience. More importantly, given the risk-aversity of the control prior, BCF ensures safe exploration and deployment, where the control prior naturally dominates the action distribution in states unknown to the policy. We additionally show BCF’s applicability to the zero-shot sim-to-real setting and its ability to deal with out-of-distribution states in the real world. BCF is a promising approach towards combining the complementary strengths of deep RL and traditional robotic control, surpassing what either can achieve independently. The code and supplementary video material are made publicly available at https://krishanrana.github.io/bcf .
Evaluation of the Performance of Expanded Polystyrene Block on the Reduction of the Deck Cracking in Wide Integral Abutment Bridge
Authors: Dahlberg Justin , Phares Brent M. , Liu Zhengyu
Published: April 2023

Longitudinal joints are thought to provide relief from expansion and contraction of the bridge deck owing to temperature change, shrinkage, and live loads, especially for a wide bridge. Historically, however, these joints have been known to leak, allowing chloride-laden water to reach the bottom of the deck overhang and even the exterior girders. Research conducted by Phares et al. indicated that the development of cracking in bridge decks seems less dependent on the total width of the deck and more so on internal restraint of the abutment to temperature changes and, in particular, gradients. Based on the finite element method (FEM) results, an effective solution to reduce cracking in the deck might be to place an isolation pad between the soil and the back side of the abutment. The primary objective of this paper is to investigate the effectiveness of an isolation foam block at the back of an integral abutment in reducing the stress-induced strain and the deck end longitudinal and diagonal cracking near the end of the deck with an integral abutment. To achieve this objective, a highway bridge (Viking Road Bridge) in Iowa, US, designed with a width of 228 ft, was selected for the study. The bridge deck has no longitudinal joints but, based on the previous research results, it was equipped with thermal isolation pads behind the abutment. The newly constructed bridge was monitored for over two years, and this was followed by multiple bridge inspections. An analytical study was conducted to investigate the efficiency of the isolation foam on the bridge deck end structural behavior. The results indicated that the thermal isolation foam is effective in reducing the temperature gradient through the abutment thickness, especially on extremely cold days. By reducing the temperature difference between the abutment and the deck, a thermal isolation block is effective at reducing the deck end strain and resisting deck end cracking. The FEM results indicated that the maximum deck stress-induced strain was 46% greater without the effects of the thermal isolation block and greater than the concrete cracking strain. This indicated that, without the thermal isolation pad, the Viking Road Bridge could crack at the end of its deck.
Internal Fixation of Unstable Osteochondritis Dissecans of the Knee: Long-term Outcomes in Skeletally Immature and Mature Patients
Authors: Husen Martin , Van der Weiden Goran S. , Custers Roel J.H. , Poudel Keshav , Stuart Michael J. , Krych Aaron J. , Saris Daniël B.F.
Published: April 2023

Background:

Osteochondritis dissecans (OCD) is a disorder originating in the subchondral bone, leading to focal lesions with risk of fragmentation and secondary damage of the articular cartilage. It remains controversial if surgical treatment of such lesions is equally successful in skeletally immature and mature patients.

Purpose:

To determine (1) the long-term clinical success rate after internal fixation of unstable OCD in skeletally immature and mature patients based on physeal status, (2) if patient-specific and procedural variables influence the risk of failure, and (3) patient-reported outcome measures over time.

Study Design:

Cohort study; Level of evidence, 3.

Methods:

A multicenter retrospective cohort study was conducted investigating skeletally immature and mature patients treated for unstable OCD lesions of the knee between 2000 and 2015. The healing rate was assessed by radiological imaging and clinical follow-up. Failure was defined as any definitive reoperation for the initially treated OCD lesion.

Results:

A total of 81 patients met inclusion criteria, including 25 skeletally immature patients and 56 patients with closed physes at the time of surgery. After a mean follow-up time of 11.3 ± 4 years, 58 (71.6%) patients had healed lesions, whereas the lesions failed to heal in 23 (28.4%) patients. No significant difference in risk of failure was observed based on physeal maturation status (hazard ratio, 0.78; 95% CI, 0.33-1.84; P = .56). Lateral versus medial condylar lesion location conferred an increased risk of failure ( P < .05) for both skeletally immature and mature patients. Multivariate analysis of skeletal maturity status showed that a lateral femoral condylar location was an independent risk factor for failure (hazard ratio, 0.22; 95% CI, 0.1-0.5; P < .05). The mean patient-reported outcome scores (International Knee Documentation Committee [IKDC] score and Knee injury and Osteoarthritis Outcome Score [KOOS]) increased significantly after surgery and remained high at the final follow-up ( P < .05). The final scores (mean ± SD) at a mean follow-up of 135.8 months (range, 80-249 months) were IKDC, 86.6 ± 16.7; KOOS Pain, 88.7 ± 18.1; KOOS Symptoms, 89.3 ± 12.6; KOOS Activities of Daily Living, 89.3 ± 21.6; KOOS Sport and Recreation, 79.8 ± 26.3; and KOOS Quality of Life, 76.7 ± 26.3.

Conclusion:

The long-term results after internal fixation of OCD fragments show high rates of healing and sustainable subjective improvement of knee function and quality of life. A healing rate of 72% was noted at a mean follow-up of 11.3 years. The stage of skeletal maturity had no significant influence on the rate of failure. Lateral femoral condylar lesion location is an independent risk factor for failure in skeletally mature and immature patients.
Transrectal shear wave elastography for detection of prostate cancer
Authors: Keskin Emin Taha , Kaplanoglu Veysel , Senocak Cagri , Basar Halil , Bozkurt Omer Faruk
Published: April 2023

Aim:

To evaluate the value of transrectal shear-wave-elastography(SWE) to differentiate benign and malignant tissues in patients with suspected prostate cancer.

Materials and methods:

Between January and May 2019, the study was designed as a prospective clinical study. The SWE value of 504 cores measured before biopsy and the pathology result of each core were used in the statistical analysis. The SWE values of benign and malignant cores were compared according to pathology results. ROC analysis was used to calculate the best cut-off SWE value for differentiating malignancy from benign tissues. Specificity, sensitivity, negative, and positive predictive values (NPV, PPV) were also calculated for cut-off value.

Results:

Prostate cancer was detected in 74 (14.7%) of 504 core biopsies. The mean SWE values were found significantly higher in malignant cores (71.1 kPa) than benign cores (42.3 kPa) ( p < 0.001). Cores with gleason score 7 had a significantly higher SWE value than Gleason score 6 ( p = 0.009). The cut-off value to differentiate malignancy and area-under-curve were calculated 35.85 kPa, 0.733, respectively. The sensitivity, specificity, NPV, and PPV were 83%, 49%, 78%, and 95%, respectively for 35.85 kPa value.

Conclusions:

The malignant tissues have significantly higher SWE values. Also high gleason score was shown to be associated with high SWE values. To predict the prostate cancer, the difference of SWE values of between benign and malignant tissues has high sensitivity. In the near future, to prevent unnecessary prostate biopsies, SWE will be part of the standard protocol for prostate imaging.
Combining filament winding with tailored fiber placement in composite cylinders locally reinforced with fibrous patches
Authors: Azevedo Cristiano B , Almeida José Humberto S , Lisbôa Tales V , Scherer Leonardo G , Spickenheuer Axel , Amico Sandro C
Published: April 2023

In this paper, a novel hybrid manufacturing process that combines filament winding (FW) and tailored fiber placement (TFP) is introduced. The main idea is to place a TFP patch in between two filament wound layers aiming at maximizing the load transfer between the parts. To assess its feasibility, physical properties, such as density, fiber volume fraction and void content, and also the hybrid process kinematics and error propagation are evaluated. Furthermore, to determine the mechanical performance of this novel procedure, axial compression tests are carried out considering several unidirectional TFP patches. Key results show low-void content and good cross-section quality, demonstrating the feasibility of the process. In addition, mass–normalized load peaks as high as 394% with respect to the reference (non-patched) cylinder were obtained.
Adopting high reliability organization principles to lead a large scale clinical transformation
Authors: Pozzobon Laura D. , Lam Jessica , Chimonides Elisa , Perkins-Meingast Brenda , Luk Wing-Si
Published: April 2023

Building high reliable healthcare systems to reduce avoidable patient harm is a global priority. However, there is variability in the application and understanding of the previously identified High Reliability Organization (HRO) principles to make improvements. We describe specific organizational activities exemplifying the five HRO principles during the planning and go-live periods of the new Electronic Health Record (EHR) system at a multi-site academic health sciences centre in Ontario, Canada. Further, we describe a case example where all five HRO principles were exemplified during EHR implementation. Overall, 23 activities exemplifying organizational anticipation and resiliency were identified. Of the 23 activities, 12 occurred during the preparing for go-live and 11 activities occurred during the go-live periods. This article demonstrates how HRO principles can be used in healthcare to detect and adapt to patient safety threats, in order to prevent avoidable patient harm during large scale change.
Retrospective Evaluation of Splenic Artery Embolization Outcomes in the Management of Blunt Splenic Trauma: A Single Centre Experience at a Large Level 1 Trauma Centre
Authors: O’Rourke Colin , McKee Hayley , Wijeyaratnam Darrin O. , Bajwa Jaspreet , Tremblay Lorraine , David Elizabeth
Published: April 2023

Purpose

Retrospective review of splenic artery embolization (SAE) outcomes performed for blunt abdominal trauma.

Materials and Methods

11-year retrospective review at a large level-1 Canadian trauma centre. All patients who underwent SAE after blunt trauma were included. Technical success was defined as angiographic occlusion of the target vessel and clinical success was defined as successful non-operative management and splenic salvage on follow-up.

Results

138 patients were included of which 68.1% were male. The median age was 47 years (interquartile range (IQR) = 32.5 years). The most common mechanisms of injury were motor vehicle accidents (37.0%), mechanical falls (25.4%), and pedestrians hit by motor vehicles (10.9%). 70.3% of patients had American Association for the Surgery of Trauma (AAST) grade 4 injuries. Patients were treated with proximal SAE (n = 97), distal SAE (n = 23) or combined SAE (n = 18), and 68% were embolized with an Amplatzer plug. No significant differences were observed across all measures of hospitalization (Length of hospital stay: x2(2) = .358, P = .836; intensive care unit (ICU) stay: x2(2) = .390, P = .823; ICU stay post-procedure: x2(2) = 1.048, P = .592). Technical success and splenic salvage were achieved in 100% and 97.8% of patients, respectively. 7 patients (5%) had post-embolization complications and 7 patients (5%) died during hospital admission, but death was secondary to other injuries sustained in the trauma rather than complications related to splenic injury or its management.

Conclusion

We report that SAE as an adjunct to non-operative management of blunt splenic trauma can be performed safely and effectively with a high rate of clinical success.
Biological activity of a chitosan-carboxymethylcellulose-zinc oxide and calcium carbonate in 3D scaffolds stabilized by physical links for bone tissue engineering
Authors: Reyna-Urrutia Víctor Alonso , Rosales-Ibáñez Raúl , González-González Arely M , Estevez Miriam , Rodríguez-Martínez Jesús Jiovanni , González-Reyna MA
Published: April 2023

Today, regenerative osteogenesis represents a clinical need, due to the incidence of bone defects that involve groups of pathologies ranging from congenital anomalies to traumatic injuries, as well as problems presented surgically. This is why the design of a polymeric biomaterial (scaffold) of chitosan, carboxymethylcellulose, zinc oxide, and calcium carbonate with similar characteristics in terms of composition and bone structure offers high potential to help address this health problem. The technique for obtaining the scaffolds of this research was to develop a physical hydrogel to have the biofunctionality of the active groups of the polymer chains used, then make use of the lyophilization process to obtain three-dimensional (3D) porous scaffolds. The physicochemical and biological properties of the scaffolds were evaluated. The scaffolds presented morphology with pore size and interconnectivity that favor the need for cell proliferation and viability. The biocompatibility tests confirm that the designed scaffolds do not present cytotoxicity and the analyzes with alizarin red staining show calcium deposits in the materials with CaCO3 and ZnO. Osteoinduction assays to osteogenic lineage using runt-related transcription factor type 2 (RUNX2) and collagen type 1 (COL-1) antibodies allowed expression in differentiated cells. Therefore, the calcium carbonate-containing scaffolds stabilized by physical bonds have characteristics of being non-cytotoxic, bioactive, and osteoinductive, which motivate their use in future tests to evaluate their demeanor with rat models for bone engineering studies.
Development of a flexible high-friction pressure sensor with structural colors for soft gripper fingers
Authors: Jung Young Bin , Shin Ji Hyeon , Yoon Hae-Sung
Published: April 2023

For energy-efficient and lightweight sensor applications, structural colors were utilized to sense the pressure applied to the surface. However, conventional structural color sensors have been usually fabricated with nanoscale features focusing on high pressure sensitivity with small load limits. In this study, a flexible surface with high frictional force and wide pressure-sensing capability was fabricated by ultra-precision machining for soft gripper applications. Friction and grip detection are very important for gripping performance and sensors for soft grippers are required to cope with loads of over 1 kg. Here, microscale three-dimensional trapezoidal patterns were fabricated and transferred to a polymer to increase the contact area for higher friction and improve structural color expression. The effects of pattern geometry on structural color changes due to the varying loads were analyzed using the hue, saturation, and brightness (HSB) model. The hues of the patterned surfaces decreased with loads. Clear color changes were apparent as the pattern width and depth varied; patterns with blue colors (hue of ~240) at no-load status sensed pressure most effectively. Based on the experimental results, a sensor was designed to have a clear color change in terms of pressure and then was applied to soft gripper fingers. Significant color changes were evident as the pressure changed during gripping even under large loads of up to 1200 g; the high friction (compared to that of a plain surface) also improved gripping performances. The sensor provides intuitive information detectable by the naked eye, and there is no need for any power source, wire, or data acquisition system. This research can contribute to the development of multi-functional, lightweight energy-efficient systems.
Modeling of temporary cavity in ballistic gelatin based on spherical cavity expansion model
Authors: Liu Li , Yang Xiao-Yi , Huang Yu , Wang Peng-Fei , Zuo Qiang
Published: April 2023

To investigate the expansion mechanism of the temporary cavity produced by high-speed penetrators into ballistic gelatin, a dynamic spherical-cavity-expansion model for gelatin targets was proposed with consideration of the outer boundary size. The theoretical solution of the cavity radial stress was obtained and the energy conversion and conservation relation during the cavity expansion process was established. The influence of the finite boundary to the solutions of the cavity radial stress and the deformation energy in the medium was analyzed. The energy conversion and conservation relation was applied to penetration process of high-speed penetrators into soft targets and regarded as the temporary cavity expansion model. This model is a nonlinear first order differential equation about the cavity radius, which can be solved numerically to obtain the variation of temporary cavity volume with time. Experimental results of high-speed penetrators (bullets and fragment simulating projectile with different shapes) penetrating into ballistic gelatin were analyzed. Temporary cavity results of rhombic fragment simulating projectiles were used to estimate the parameters in the model. Then, model predictions were compared with the temporary cavity results of bullets, spheres and cylinders to verify the reliability of the model. It was found that: (1) if the ratio of the cavity radius to the initial target boundary radius exceeds 0.62, the error caused by ignoring the boundary size effect will exceed 10%; (2) Model predictions for temporary cavity volume of penetration produced by various penetrators are shown to be in good agreement with the corresponding experimental results.
Hybrid attention based vehicle trajectory prediction
Authors: Wang Lingyang , Jiang Wenping
Published: April 2023

Accurately predicting trajectory of vehicles is a key capability for autonomous vehicles during real-world driving scenarios, which requires the autonomous vehicles to perceive the surrounding environment and analyze the track histories to judge the driving intentions of the focused surrounding vehicles in order to make decisions for the next trajectory route. In this paper, we propose a hybrid attentional trajectory prediction model incorporating both temporal attentional and spatial attentional mechanisms, which has a temporal attentional model that can be used to capture important temporal information affecting trajectory prediction and a spatial attentional mechanism that can better introduce spatial dependencies and potential driving intention information of surrounding and target vehicles. The models are evaluated for performance on publicly available highD and NGSIM datasets. By comparing the results with other state-of-the-art models for trajectory prediction, it is found that the model achieves an improvement in prediction performance, indicating that this model can more accurately learn driving information from the spatio-temporal perspective of the target driving vehicle’s attention. Further, by qualitatively analyzing the distribution of attention weights from the spatio-temporal perspective, we assessed the interpretability of the model on the maneuverability judgment of the vehicle.
Psychological barriers to take-up of healthcare and child support benefits in the Netherlands
Authors: Simonse Olaf , Knoef Marike , Van Dillen Lotte F , Van Dijk Wilco W , Van Dijk Eric
Published: April 2023

We empirically test an integral model for healthcare and child support benefits take-up using a probability sample of the Dutch population ( N = 905). To examine how different psychological factors, in conjunction, explain take-up, we apply model averaging with Akaike’s Information Criterion (AICC). For both types of benefits, people’s perceptions of eligibility best explain take-up. For healthcare benefits, take-up also relates to perceptions of need. Exploratory analyses suggest that for healthcare benefits but not for child support benefits, executive functions, self-efficacy, fear of reclaims, financial stress, and welfare stigma explain perceived eligibility. We find no support for knowledge, support, and administrative burden as explanatory factors in take-up. We discuss the results in relation to the Capability Opportunity Motivation Behaviour (COM-B) model for developing behavioural change interventions.
circSOBP Inhibits Bladder Cancer Proliferation and Metastasis by Regulating the miR-200a-3p/PTEN Axis and Participating in the Immune Response
Authors: Zhang Yinglang , Li Zhi , Zhang Yu , Shen Chong , Zhang Zhe , Ren Xiaolei , Guo Changgang , Yang Shaobo , Wang Zejin , Hu Hailong
Published: April 2023

A growing body of evidence shows that circular RNAs (circRNAs) participate in tumor growth and metastasis and also play crucial roles in the treatment and prognosis of various cancers. In this article, we identified a novel circRNA, circSOBP (has_circ_0001633), based on the results of high-throughput RNA sequencing, and its expression was subsequently validated via quantitative reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction in bladder cancer (BCa) tissues and cell lines. The association between circSOBP expression and the clinicopathologic features and prognosis of 56 recruited BCa patients was then analyzed, and the biological roles of circSOBP were assessed by in vitro cloning formation, wound healing, transwell, CCK-8, and in vivo xenograft mouse models. Next, the competitive endogenous RNA mechanism was explored through fluorescence in situ hybridization, RNA pull-down, luciferase reporter, bioinformatics analysis, and rescue experiments. Western blot and immunohistochemistry detected the expression of downstream mRNA, and we were able to determine that circSOBP was downregulated in BCa tissues and cell lines and that lower circSOBP expression was associated with more advanced pathological stage, larger tumor size, and poorer overall survival with BCa patients. Overexpressed circSOBP suppressed cell proliferation, migration, and invasion both in vitro and in vivo. Mechanistically, competitive interactions between circSOBP and miR-200a-3p enhanced target gene PTEN expression. In addition, we found a significant correlation between higher expression of circSOBP in BCa patients after immunotherapy than before and a better treatment outcome, indicating that circSOBP might regulate the programmed death 1/programmed death ligand 1 pathway. Overall, circSOBP inhibits BCa tumorigenesis and metastasis by a novel miR-200a-3p/PTEN axis, which makes it an excellent biomarker and therapeutic target for treating BCa.
Socioeconomic Predictors and Cost of Comorbidity Among Indian Population: A Case of Diabetes and Hypertension
Authors: Rai Neha , Tripathi Tulika
Published: April 2023

Purpose

With changing demography and the increasing burden of chronic diseases comorbidity is becoming a major public health concern. Among various co-occurring disease combinations, diabetes and hypertension are the two most fatal combinations often increasing the risk of multimorbidity, complexity, and cost of treatment. Therefore, this study intends to estimate the prevalence of comorbidity in India and across various socioeconomic groups to identify the higher-risk population. We further analysed the economic burden associated with comorbid conditions of diabetes and hypertension in particular.

Data and Methodology

This is a cross-sectional study that uses Unit-Level data from the NSSO-75 round (2017–2018). The marginal effect using the logit model is calculated to identify the higher-risk population for the prevalence of comorbidity across socioeconomic and demographic characteristics. The cost of treatment is calculated through descriptive statistics.

Results and Conclusion

The prevalence of comorbid diabetes and hypertension is 2.06% in India. Heart disease, goiter and thyroid, joint pain, bronchial asthma, and gastric peptic ulcer are the common combinations prevailing among patients with diabetes and hypertension together. Results suggest that the elderly and women are at higher risk of comorbidity. Education and higher economic status are positively associated with it. The cost of treatment increases with comorbidity, and medicine constitutes almost 83.2% of the total medical cost among patients with diabetes and hypertension.
Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services in Australia: A descriptive analysis between 2015–16 and 2019–20
Authors: Brazel Matthew , Allison Stephen , Bastiampillai Tarun , Kisely Stephen R , Looi Jeffrey CL
Published: April 2023

Objective

To provide analysis and commentary on Australian state/territory child and adolescent mental health service (CAMHS) expenditure, inpatient and ambulatory structure and key performance indicators.

Method

Data from the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare and the Australian Bureau of Statistics were descriptively analysed.

Results

Between 2015–16 and 2019–20, overall CAMHS expenditure increased by an average annual rate of 3.6%. Per capita expenditure increased at a higher rate than for other subspeciality services. CAMHS admissions had a higher cost per patient day, shorter length of stay, higher readmission rate and lower rates of significant improvement. Adolescents aged 12–17 had high community CAMHS utilisation, based on proportion of population coverage and number of service contacts. CAMHS outpatient outcomes were similar to other age-groups. There were high rates of ‘Mental disorder not otherwise specified’, depression and adjustment/stress-related disorders as principal diagnoses in community CAMHS episodes.

Conclusions

CAMHS inpatient admissions had lower rates of significant improvement and higher 14-day readmission rates than other ages. Australia’s young population had a high outpatient CAMHS contact rate. Evidence-based modelling of CAMHS providers and outcomes may inform future service improvement.
‘Make Them Wonder How You Are Still Smiling’: The Lived Experience of Coping With a Brain Tumour
Authors: Zanotto Anna , Goodall Karen , Ellison Marion , McVittie Chris
Published: April 2023

A brain tumour can be a life-threatening illness and cause unique symptoms compared to other types of cancer, such as cognitive or language deficits, or changes in personality. It is an exceptionally distressing diagnosis which can affect quality of life, even for those with a low-grade tumour or many years after the diagnosis. This study sought to gain an in-depth understanding of the lived experience of adjustment to living with a brain tumour. Twelve individuals (83% female) with a primary brain tumour (83% low-grade) took part in the study. Participants were aged 29–54 years, on average 43 months following the diagnosis, and were recruited through the charitable support organisations in the United Kingdom. In-depth semi-structured interviews were conducted, transcribed verbatim, and analysed using interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA). Six inter-related themes were identified: making sense of the diagnosis, seeking empowerment, feeling appreciative, taking charge of coping, learning to accept, and negotiating a new normality. Notions of empowerment, gratitude, and acceptance throughout the illness journey were prominent in the participants’ narratives. Receiving sufficient information and initiating treatment were important in negotiation of control. The results highlighted what facilitates and hinders adaptive coping. Aspects which facilitated positive coping were as follows: trust in clinician, feeling in control, feeling grateful, or accepting. Participants on a ‘watch and wait’ approach, while feeling appreciative, perceived the lack of treatment as difficult and frustrating. Implications for patient–clinician communication are discussed, particularly for patients on a ‘watch and wait’ who might need additional support in adjusting.
Modeling and control of robotic manipulators equipped with the flexible cable-pulley based gravity compensation mechanism
Authors: Arezoo Keyvan , Arezoo Jamal , Tarvirdizadeh Bahram , Alipour Khalil
Published: April 2023

Robotic manipulators that utilize the Cable-Pulley based Gravity Compensation Mechanism (CPGCM) have drawn increasing attention due to their exceptional features. In the current study, for the first time, the modeling and control of such systems will be addressed considering the flexibility of the cables. To this end, initially, the dominant dynamics of the cables are identified. Then, the Lagrangian of the whole robotic system including the flexibility of the cables is obtained and the system equations of motion are formed. To design the motion controller for the system, and suppress the vibrations stemmed from the inherent flexibility of the cables, the obtained dynamics is transformed into the standard form of the Singular Perturbation Theory (SPT). To achieve this goal, a combination of the inverse dynamics and Nonsingular Terminal Sliding Mode controller is designed, assuming the rigid model of the cable. A modifying term based on SPT is then added to the previous control signal to tackle the flexibility effects of the cables. The finite-time stability of the overall closed-loop controller is proven using Lyapunov’s direct method. The proposed controller is robust to deal with both structured and unstructured uncertainties of the system. The obtained results confirm that the presented robust control algorithm guarantees the stability of the closed-loop system in the finite time. Moreover, it is able to suppress the arisen vibration because of the inherent axial flexibility of the cables in various operational conditions.
An efficient damage imaging method for composite structure based on self-correcting phase error compensation MUSIC algorithm
Authors: Zheng Fei , Yuan Shenfang , Liu Yuan , Xu Qiuhui
Published: April 2023

The increasing use of composite materials on aircraft structures, most of which are plate-like, has attracted much attention for damage monitoring based on guided wave as a kind of structural health monitoring (SHM) method. The multiple signal classification (MUSIC) algorithm is a directional scanning and searching method to unbiasedly estimate the signal features in terms of the orthogonal attributes between signal subspace and noise subspace. The MUSIC algorithm is gradually shifted into the field of SHM used for damage localization. However, the anisotropy of the composites and the sensor position errors cause the phase errors of the array response signal, resulting in a decrease in the accuracy of the MUSIC method. In addition, the complexity of the array monitoring network causes a significant increase in the amount of operations for signal information processing, making online real-time monitoring challenging. In order to reduce the impact of multiple forms of array errors on the MUSIC algorithm and to improve the efficiency of it, this paper proposes an efficient damage imaging method for composite structure based on self-correcting phase error compensation MUSIC algorithm, which compensates for the array phase errors caused by structural anisotropy and sensor position errors, and achieves high efficiency. The method has been verified on a stiffened composite structure, and the results show its superiority and effectiveness.
They Live in an Isolation Chamber: Medicare Fails the Depressed Homebound Elderly
Authors: Cabin William
Published: April 2023

There is significant literature on the existence and adverse effects of social isolation and depression among the elderly, exacerbated by the recent COVID-19 pandemic. A literature review indicates no studies of how the Medicare home health benefit addresses social isolation and depression, including no studies of home care social workers’ perceptions of the nature and consequences of Medicare coverage. This article summarizes an initial, exploratory study to address the literature gap, based on interviews of a convenience sample of 44 home care social workers from 5 different home health agencies in the New York City metropolitan area between November 1, 2021 and May 31, 2022. Six themes emerged from the study. Social workers believe: (1) extensive social isolation and depression exist among Medicare home health beneficiaries; (2) Medicare home health policy provides no systematic measure to detect or monitor social isolation and a limited measure for depression among the homebound elderly; (3) Medicare home health policy provides no coverage to treat either depression or social isolation; (4) effective interventions are available to prevent and treat depression and social isolation. Social workers also believe that: (5) the lack of social isolation and depression coverage results in additional mental and physical health conditions; (6) lack of social isolation and depression coverage exacerbates existing mental and physical health conditions. Policymakers are urged to modify the Medicare home health benefit to improve detection and monitoring of social isolation and depression as well as coverage of appropriate evidence-based preventative and treatment interventions.
Symptoms Experienced at Home and Self-Care Requisites of Patients After Heart Transplantation: A Retrospective Study
Authors: Saglam Aksut Rabia , Yavuz Busra , Aksut Mehmet , Gunay Deniz , Kirali Mehmet Kaan
Published: April 2023

Heart transplantation is the most important treatment option in end-stage heart failure, and heart transplant recipients should be monitored at home by healthcare professionals in terms of symptoms and self-care requisites. The aim of this study is to examine symptoms and self-care requisites of patients with heart transplantation after discharge. Symptoms and self-care requisites of 81 patients who had heart transplantation between 2015 and 2020 were evaluated retrospectively in this study. Survey data were collected using the telephone interview method. It was determined that 77.8% of the patients were male and their mean age was 41.87 ± 2.51 years. Fatigue (91.4%), pain in the back, neck, and joints (86.4%), restlessness/agitation (81.5%), weight gain (71.6%), and edema in the lower extremities (71.6%) were the first 5 common symptoms experienced at home after heart transplantation. It was also found that the vast majority of patients (80.2%) answered negatively to the question of eliminating the lack of knowledge about the disease, and some of the patients were found not to pay attention to some important issues (e.g., regular blood pressure check, quitting smoking, etc.). Findings revealed that patients with heart transplantation experience a series of symptoms, and their self-care requisites were mostly focused on education and information specific to the disease after discharge. As a part of public health nursing practices, home care concentrating on symptoms and learning needs of patients should be planned and organized with a multidisciplinary approach to decrease rehospitalization and contribute to cost-effectiveness after heart transplantation.