bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Zooetnografías musicales multiespecie: cauces metodológicos de las músicas interespecíficas
Authors: Castaño Ramírez Simón
Published: July 2022

Este artículo propone la zooetnografía musical multiespecie como una nueva metodología que pretende señalar y cuestionar, musical y teóricamente, las problemáticas separaciones y dicotomías entre ser humano/naturaleza, cultura/natura y música/ sonido. Desde finales del siglo XIX, el término música acoge un amplio espectro de prácticas experimentales en Occidente; sin embargo, en varias perspectivas institucionales y disciplinares académicas, también occidentales, esta categoría sigue estando restringida a las expresiones sonoras humanas. Por otro lado, los usos excluyentes de los conceptos de ser humano/naturaleza y cultura/natura limitan, tal vez innecesariamente, los campos disciplinares, tanto que muchas de sus bases conceptuales fundacionales y estructuras institucionales fueron construidas sobre la distinción entre el estudio de lo natural y lo cultural. Desde la discusión teórica y práctica artística, alrededor de los sonidos de otras especies animales, la nueva metodología propuesta, la zooetnografía musical multiespecie, quiere sumarse a los esfuerzos que intentan erosionar algunas de esas fronteras disciplinares, en este caso, la limitación a lo humano que existe en muchas concepciones y prácticas musicales. Esta metodología también procura servir de guía sobre cómo acercarse al diseño y la composición de músicas interespecíficas, no solo desde el ámbito de lo sonoro, sino también desde reflexiones etológicas y etnográficas. Además, presenta unas guías estructurales musicales generales y puede incluir, opcionalmente, unas partituras/ guías de unas sesiones de improvisación interespecífica. Así es como propongo esta metodología como un acercamiento mixto que se mueve libremente entre las dinámicas de la etología, la etnografía y la investigación-creación artística.
Multivariable Robust Proportional-Integral-Derivative Control for Linear Quadratic Compensation of a Class of Norm-Bounded Uncertain Systems
Authors: Pradhan Jatin Kumar , Ghosh Arun
Published: July 2022

This paper is concerned with designing multi-input multi-output (MIMO) proportional-integral-derivative (PID) control having filtered derivative terms to achieve optimal linear quadratic performance for a class of linear uncertain MIMO systems with norm-bounded time-varying uncertainties. A necessary and sufficient condition for existence of the PID controller is obtained in terms of rank constrained linear matrix inequalities (LMIs). Using an existing penalty-function-based approximation for matrix rank minimization, an algorithm is proposed to solve these rank constrained LMIs and find PID gains. A suitable numerical example is considered to show the efficacy of the proposed approach in ensuring robust performance as compared to the existing ones. The proposed algorithm is also tested on several benchmark examples and found to be computationally much more efficient than some well-known methods.
Adjoint Analysis of Plane Poiseuille Flow Global and Convective Stability
Authors: Xu Lei , Zhang Yuxin
Published: July 2022

The adjoint analysis of plane Poiseuille flow is conducted for both global and convective stability problems. Receptivity and structural sensitivity are analyzed using a stabilized finite element method. In the global stability problem at high Reynolds numbers, the leading adjoint modes exhibit a boundary-layer-like structure at the inlet and near the channel walls. For convective stability problem, receptivity is highest in regions close to the walls similar to the global adjoint modes. Structural separation of direct and adjoint modes indicates high non-normality of the linear operators. Structural sensitivity analysis shows that both the global and convective stability are most sensitive to momentum perturbation near the wall and become increasingly sensitive to near-wall perturbations as Reynolds number increases. Slight variation of wall shape tends to affect the linear stability of plane Poiseuille flow significantly at high Reynolds numbers.
On the semantic representation of risk
Authors: Wulff Dirk U. , Mata Rui
Published: July 2022

What are the defining features of lay people’s semantic representation of risk? We contribute to mapping the semantics of risk based on word associations to provide insight into both universal and individual differences in the representation of risk. Specifically, we introduce a mini-snowball word association paradigm and use the tools of network and sentiment analysis to characterize the semantics of risk. We find that association-based representations not only corroborate but also extend those extracted from past survey- and text-based approaches. Crucially, we find that the semantics of risk show universal properties and individual and group differences. Most notably, while semantic clusters generalize across languages, their frequency varies systematically across demographic groups, with older and female respondents showing more negative connotations and mentioning more often certain types of activities (e.g., recreational activities) relative to younger adults and males, respectively. Our work has general implications for the measurement of risk-related constructs by suggesting that “risk” can mean different things to different individuals.
Storage and analysis of light-matter entanglement in a fiber-integrated system
Authors: Rakonjac Jelena V. , Corrielli Giacomo , Lago-Rivera Dario , Seri Alessandro , Mazzera Margherita , Grandi Samuele , Osellame Roberto , de Riedmatten Hugues
Published: July 2022

The deployment of a full-fledged quantum internet poses the challenge of finding adequate building blocks for entanglement distribution between remote quantum nodes. A practical system would combine propagation in optical fibers with quantum memories for light, leveraging on the existing communication network while featuring the scalability required to extend to network sizes. Here, we demonstrate a fiber-integrated quantum memory entangled with a photon at telecommunication wavelength. The storage device is based on a fiber-pigtailed laser-written waveguide in a rare earth–doped solid and allows an all-fiber stable addressing of the memory. The analysis of the entanglement is performed using fiber-based interferometers. Our results feature orders-of-magnitude advances in terms of storage time and efficiency for integrated storage of light-matter entanglement and constitute a substantial step forward toward quantum networks using integrated devices.
ECM-mimetic immunomodulatory hydrogel for methicillin-resistant
Staphylococcus aureus
–infected chronic skin wound healing
Authors: Liu Wenshuai , Gao Rui , Yang Chunfang , Feng Zujian , Ou-Yang Wenbin , Pan Xiangbin , Huang Pingsheng , Zhang Chuangnian , Kong Deling , Wang Weiwei
Published: July 2022

The treatment of difficult-to-heal wounds remains a substantial clinical challenge due to deteriorative tissue microenvironment including the loss of extracellular matrix (ECM), excessive inflammation, impaired angiogenesis, and bacterial infection. Inspired by the chemical components, fibrous structure, and biological function of natural ECM, antibacterial and tissue environment–responsive glycopeptide hybrid hydrogel was developed for chronic wound healing. The hydrogel can facilitate the cell proliferation and macrophage polarization to M2 phenotype, and show potent antibacterial efficacy against both Gram-negative and Gram-positive bacteria. Significantly, the glycopeptide hydrogel accelerated the reconstruction of methicillin-resistant
Staphylococcus aureus
(MRSA)–infected full-thickness diabetic and scalding skin by orchestrating a pro-regenerative response indicated by abundant M2-type macrophages, attenuated inflammation, and promoted angiogenesis. Collectively, ECM-mimetic and immunomodulatory glycopeptide hydrogel is a promising multifunctional dressing to reshape the damaged tissue environment without additional drugs, exogenous cytokines, or cells, providing an effective strategy for the repair and regeneration of chronic cutaneous wounds.
Light-induced charged slippery surfaces
Authors: Wang Fang , Liu Meijin , Liu Cong , Zhao Qilong , Wang Ting , Wang Zuankai , Du Xuemin
Published: July 2022

Slippery lubricant-infused porous (SLIPS) and superhydrophobic surfaces have emerged as promising interfacial materials for various applications such as self-cleaning, anti-icing, and antifouling. Paradoxically, the coverage/screening of lubricant layer on underlying rough matrix endows functionalities impossible on superhydrophobic surfaces; however, the inherent flexibility in programming droplet manipulation through tailoring structure or surface charge gradient in underlying matrix is compromised. Here, we develop a class of slippery material that harnesses the dual advantages of both solid and lubricant. This is achieved by rationally constructing a photothermal-responsive composite matrix with real-time light-induced surface charge regeneration capability, enabling photocontrol of droplets in various working scenarios. We demonstrate that this light-induced charged slippery surface (LICS) exerts photocontrol of droplets with fast speed, long distance, antigravity motion, and directionally collective motion. We further extend the LICS to biomedical domains, ranging from specific morphological hydrogel bead formation in an open environment to biological diagnosis and analysis in closed-channel microfluidics.
A phospho-tyrosine–based signaling module using SPOP, CSK, and LYN controls TLR-induced IRF activity
Authors: Tawaratsumida Kazuki , Redecke Vanessa , Wu Ruiqiong , Kuriakose Jeeba , Bouchard Jill J. , Mittag Tanja , Lohman Brian K. , Mishra Ashutosh , High Anthony A. , Häcker Hans
Published: July 2022

Toll-like receptors (TLRs) recognize pathogen- and host-derived factors and control immune responses via the adaptor protein MyD88 and members of the interferon regulatory transcription factor (IRF) family. IRFs orchestrate key effector functions, including cytokine release, cell differentiation, and, under certain circumstances, inflammation pathology. Here, we show that IRF activity is generically controlled by the Src kinase family member LYN, which phosphorylates all TLR-induced IRFs at a conserved tyrosine residue, resulting in K48-linked polyubiquitination and proteasomal degradation of IRFs. We further show that LYN activity is controlled by the upstream kinase C-terminal Src kinase (CSK), whose activity, in turn, is controlled by the adaptor protein SPOP, which serves as molecular bridge to recruit CSK into the TLR signaling complex and to activate CSK catalytic activity. Consistently, deletion of SPOP or CSK results in increased LYN activity, LYN-directed IRF degradation, and inhibition of IRF transcriptional activity. Together, the data reveal a key regulatory mechanism for IRF family members controlling TLR biology.
Perceptions and expectations of parents regarding their position in a French NICU: quantitative and qualitative approaches
Authors: Thébaud Véronique , Dargentas Magdalini , Sizun Jacques
Published: July 2022

Objectives

To assess perceptions, expectations, and concerns of parents of preterm infants regarding their position during hospital admission in the neonatal intensive care unit.

Design

Data were analysed from two studies, using complementary methods (quantitative and qualitative). Study I surveyed parents via a questionnaire, and study II was a reanalysis of interviews with fathers, collected in a previous study.

Setting

Neonatology department in a French tertiary care university hospital that promotes the Newborn Individualised Care and Assessment Program (NIDCAP).

Participants

In both studies, participants had a premature child admitted for any level of care in the neonatal intensive care unit.

Results

For study I, about half (33) of eligible families participated in the questionnaire survey, and for study II, we reanalysed interviews with 20 fathers. In both analyses, parents were satisfied overall with their involvement in the care of their child. In both studies, however, they expressed that they had expected to be better informed about their child’s condition and more involved in medical decision-making. Parents also reported relational issues with some healthcare practitioners who made them feel judged, unheard or not competent to discuss their child’s case. These concerns were not reported for NIDCAP staff. Respondents in both studies also described insufficient contact with physicians and an inability to obtain rest in the room with their child.

Conclusion

Provision of training to healthcare practitioners regarding information that parents request and doing so respectfully might be keys to fulfilling parent-reported needs. Such improvements could facilitate parental empowerment and involvement.
Symptom patterns in patients newly sick listed for common mental disorders and associations with work-related and socioeconomic factors: a cross-sectional study in Swedish primary care
Authors: Svenningsson Irene , Björkelund Cecilia , Hange Dominique , Wiegner Lilian , Ariai Nashmil , Petersson Eva-Lisa
Published: July 2022

Objective

The aim was to determine symptom patterns of depression, anxiety and stress-related mental disorders in newly sick listed due to common mental disorders in Swedish primary care patients and to examine associations with sick leave diagnosis, also in relation to socioeconomic, work-related and demographic factors.

Design

Cross-sectional study.

Setting

Primary care in western Sweden.

Participants

From a randomised controlled trial, patients aged 18–67, seeking primary care and on sick leave due to depression, anxiety and/or mental stress, in total 341 individuals, during 2018–2020.

Primary outcome measures

Patterns of depressive, anxiety and stress symptoms measured via self-assessment questionnaires (Montgomery Asberg Depression Rating Scale-Self (MADRS-S), General Anxiety Disorder Scale-7 (GAD-7), Karolinska Exhaustion Disorder Scale (KEDS)), sick leave diagnosis, perception of Work Ability Index and job strain via the job strain model.

Results

A combination of high levels of depressive and stress-related symptoms was more frequent than single symptom clusters among persons with common mental disorders (CMD) on sick leave: 7% of the patients had scores above cut-off for one of the instruments MADRS-S, GAD-7 and KEDS, 12% above cut-off for two and 80% had above cut-off for all three instruments. There was no significant association between low socioeconomic status, high-job strain or working in healthcare/education and having scores above cut-off level for two or more of the instruments. Only perception of own poor work ability showed association with having scores above cut-off level for all three of the assessment instruments of CMD (OR 9.45, 95% CI 2.41 to 37.04).

Conclusion

The diagnosis on the sick certificate is not always congruent with the dominating symptom score level. In patients sick-leaved for CMDs, possible negative factors such as low socioeconomic status, low social support, high-work strain or working in healthcare/education sector did not show significant associations with self-assessment instruments of anxiety, depression and stress. Only patient’s perception of own poor work ability was associated with high scores on all three domains.

Trial registration number

NCT03250026.
Women’s hospital birth experiences in Harar, eastern Ethiopia: a qualitative study using Roy’s Adaptation Model
Authors: Tefera Maleda , Assefa Nega , Roba Kedir Teji , Gedefa Letta , Brewis Alex , Schuster Roseanne C
Published: July 2022

Objective

The aim of the study was to explore women's birth in public hospitals in the Harari Region of eastern Ethiopia.

Design

An exploratory phenomenological qualitative study design was used.

Setting

Two public hospitals (Hiwot Fana Specialized University Hospital and Jugal General Hospital).

Participants and methods

The study enrolled women who gave birth at the selected hospitals through purposive sampling. We conducted in-depth interviews with 38 women who gave birth to singleton, full-term babies via vaginal delivery (47%; n=18) or caesarean section (53%; n=20) with no pregnancy-related complications. Interviews were audio-recorded and transcribed on the spot and the interviews were analysed using a deductive content analysis approach. Data were analysed using the four components of Roy’s Adaptation Model (RAM) as a guiding framework of women’s experiences: physiological, self-concept, role and function, and interdependence.

Results

Various behaviours were identified: under physiological mode, common behaviours identified included labour pain, fatigue, surgical site pain and anaesthesia-related complication. The women’s major problems in self-concept mode were concern for future pregnancy, lack of privacy, newborn health status, relationship with healthcare providers and lack of family support. Due to the prolonged hospital stay and surgical site pain, the women who were unable to care for themselves, their newborn babies and their families adapted poorly to role and function mode. Finally, women who had no family support and who got less attention from healthcare providers reported ineffective adaption for interdependence mode.

Conclusions

Application of RAM principles could be used to improve care for Ethiopian women, providing an intervention framework that can gauge and respond to interacting factors that can make women vulnerable to negative birth experiences.
Association between perception of COVID-19 risk, confidence in health services and avoidance of emergency department visits: results from a community-based survey in Portugal
Authors: Lopes Sílvia , Soares Patrícia , Gama Ana , Pedro Ana Rita , Moniz Marta , Laires Pedro , Goes Ana Rita , Nunes Carla , Dias Sónia
Published: July 2022

Objectives

To examine the association between the perception of COVID-19 risk, confidence in health services and avoidance of emergency department (ED) visits in Portugal during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Design

Community-based, cross-sectional survey.

Setting

Volunteer sample that completed the online survey between April 2020 and May 2021.

Participants

987 participants who perceived needing ED care. Of those, 242 reported avoiding ED visits.

Outcome measures

Logistic regression models for ED avoidance were conducted to estimate the effect of risk perception and confidence in health services, adjusted for sociodemographics, health status and time.

Results

The adjusted odds for ED avoidance were higher for participants lacking confidence in health service response to non-COVID-19 conditions (adjusted OR: 6.39; 95% CI 3.19 to 12.82) and COVID-19 (1.81; 1.19 to 2.77) and lower for those perceiving a low risk of being infected at a health provider (0.16; 0.07 to 0.38).

Conclusion

In our sample, confidence in health services and risk perception of infection at a health provider were associated with the decision to avoid the ED. These results suggest that policymakers and care providers need to mitigate the negative consequences of delayed healthcare; be aware of the implications of distrust and fear from those in need of healthcare and provide equally distributed safe alternatives to ED care.
Body height in adult women and men in a cross-sectional population-based survey in Geneva: temporal trends, association with general health status and height loss after age 50
Authors: Schäppi Julia , Stringhini Silvia , Guessous Idris , Staub Kaspar , Matthes Katarina L
Published: July 2022

Objective

On the one hand, trends in average height in adulthood mirror changes in living standard and health status of a population and its subgroups; on the other hand, height in general, as well as the loss of height in older age in particular, are associated in different ways with outcomes for health. For these aspects, there is hardly any information for Switzerland based on representative and measured body height data.

Design

Repeated cross-sectional survey study.

Setting

Fully anonymised data from the representative population-based Geneva Bus Santé Study between 2005 and 2017 were analysed.

Methods

Data from N=8686 study participants were used in the trend analysis. Height was measured and sociodemographic information and self-rated health was collected via questionnaires. Follow-up (mean: 7.1 years) measurements from N=2112 participants were available to assess height loss after age 50.

Results

Women were, on average, 166.2 cm (SD 6.5) tall and men 179.2 cm (SD 6.5). Among men and women, higher socioeconomic status was associated with taller average height. The flattening of the increase in height from the 1970s birth years appears to begin earlier in the subgroup with the highest education level. The tallest average height was measured for men and women from Central and Northern Europe, the shortest for South America and Asia. The likelihood that participants rated their health as ‘very good’ increased with greater body height. The follow-up data show that men lost −0.11 cm per follow-up year (95% CI −0.12 to −0.10), women −0.17 cm (95% CI −0.18 to 0.15).

Conclusions

The association of height and health status is currently understudied. Monitoring changes in average body height may indicate disparities in different subgroups of populations. Based on our study and a growing literature, we think that the multifaceted role of body height should be better considered in clinical practice.
Does awake prone positioning prevent the use of mechanical respiratory support or death in COVID-19 patients on standard oxygen therapy hospitalised in general wards? A multicentre randomised controlled trial: the PROVID-19 protocol
Authors: Nay Mai-Anh , Planquette Benjamin , Perrin Christophe , Clément Jérémy , Plantier Laurent , Sève Aymeric , Druelle Sylvie , Morrier Marine , Lainé Jean-Baptiste , Colombain Léa , Corvaisier Grégory , Bizien Nicolas , Pouget-Abadie Xavier , Bigot Adrien , Bernard Louis , Nyamankolly Elsa , Fossat Guillaume , Boulain Thierry
Published: July 2022

Introduction

COVID-19 is responsible of severe hypoxaemia and acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS). Prone positioning improves oxygenation and survival in sedated mechanically patients with ARDS not related to COVID-19. Awake prone positioning is a simple and safe technique which improves oxygenation in non-intubated COVID-19 patients. We hypothesised that early prone positioning in COVID-19 patients breathing spontaneously in medical wards could decrease the rates of intubation or need for noninvasive ventilation or death.

Methods and analysis

PROVID-19 is an investigator-initiated, prospective, multicentre randomised, controlled, superiority trial comparing awake prone positioning to standard of care in hypoxaemic COVID-19 patients in 20 medical wards in France and Monaco. Patients are randomised to receive either awake prone position plus usual care or usual care alone with stratification on centres, body mass index and severity of hypoxaemia.

The study objective is to compare the rate of treatment failure defined as a composite endpoint comprising the need for non-invasive ventilation (at two pressure levels) or for intubation or death, between the intervention group (awake prone position plus usual care) and the usual care (usual care alone) group at 28 days.

Ethics and dissemination

The protocol and amendments have been approved by the ethics committees (Comité de protection des personnes Ouest VI, France, no 1279 HPS2 and Comité Consultatif d’Ethique en matière de Recherche Biomédicale, Monaco, no 2020.8894 AP/jv), and patients are included after written informed consent. The results will be submitted for publication in peer-reviewed journals.

Trial registration number

NCT04363463.
Adherence to face mask use during the COVID-19 pandemic among women seeking antenatal care in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo: a facility-based cross-sectional study
Authors: Nkamba Dalau Mukadi , Arena Patrick J , Gadoth Adva , Hoff Nicole A , Dzogang Camille , Kampilu David , Beya Michael , Wong Hui-Lee , Anderson Steven , Kaba Didine , Rimoin Anne W
Published: July 2022

Objectives

To describe face mask use among pregnant women seeking antenatal care (ANC) in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo and to identify factors associated with masking adherence in this population.

Design

Facility-based cross-sectional study nested within a prospective cohort study.

Setting

Random sample of 10 health facilities, including 5 primary health centers and 5 secondary facilities or hospitals.

Participants

A total of 934 pregnant women aged 18 years or above with a gestational age of at least 32 weeks were consecutively surveyed from 17 August 2020 to 31 January 2021.

Primary and secondary outcome measures

We estimated the proportions of pregnant women wearing a face mask and masking correctly (ie, over the mouth and nose), and assessed their knowledge regarding the COVID-19 pandemic. Multivariable logistic regression was employed to identify factors associated with overall and correct face mask use.

Results

Overall, 309 (33.1%) women wore a mask during the interview after their antenatal appointments, but only 33 (10.7%) wore a mask correctly. The odds of masking and correct mask use were significantly higher among women who had their ANC visit in a facility that provided COVID-19 care. Additionally, women who experienced COVID-19-like symptoms in the past 6 months had higher odds of wearing a mask correctly compared with those reporting no recent symptoms. Although 908 (97.2%) women were aware of the COVID-19 pandemic, only 611 (67.3%) thought that COVID-19 was circulating locally in Kinshasa.

Conclusion

Overall and correct face mask adherence levels were low among pregnant women attending ANC in Kinshasa. Our study highlights the need for improving adherence to correct face mask use in order to help control the spread of COVID-19 within Kinshasa alongside other control measures, like vaccination.
Socioeconomic differences in inpatient care expenditure in the last year of life among older people: a retrospective population-based study in Stockholm County
Authors: Doheny Megan , Schön Pär , Orsini Nicola , Walander Anders , Burström Bo , Agerholm J
Published: July 2022

Objectives

To investigate the association between inpatient care expenditure (ICE) and income group and the effect of demographic factors, health status, healthcare and social care utilisation on ICE in the last year of life.

Design

Retrospective population-based study.

Setting

Stockholm County.

Participants

Decedents ≥65 years in 2015 (N=13 538).

Outcome

ICE was calculated individually for the month of, and 12 months preceding death using healthcare register data from 2014 and 2015. ICE included the costs of admission and treatment in inpatient care adjusted for the price level in 2018.

Results

There were difference between income groups and ICE incurred at the 75th percentile, while a social gradient was found at the 95th percentile where the highest income group incurred higher ICE (SEK45 307, 95% CI SEK12 055 to SEK79 559) compared with the lowest income groups. Incurring higher ICE at the 95th percentile was driven by greater morbidity (SEK20 333, 95% CI SEK12 673 to SEK29 993) and emergency department care visits (SEK77 995, 95% CI SEK64 442 to SEK79 549), while lower ICE across the distribution was associated with older age and residing in institutional care.

Conclusion

Gaining insight into patterns of healthcare expenditure in the last year of life has important implications for policy, particularly as socioeconomic differences were visible in ICE at a time of greater care need for all. Future policies should focus on engaging in advanced care planning and strengthening the coordination of care for older people.
Online self-management fall prevention intervention for people with multiple sclerosis: a feasibility study protocol of a parallel group randomised trial
Authors: Kierkegaard Marie , Peterson Elizabeth , Tuvemo Johnson Susanna , Gottberg Kristina , Johansson Sverker , Elf Marie , Flink Maria , Ytterberg Charlotte
Published: July 2022

Introduction

Falls among people with multiple sclerosis (PwMS) are common and associated with injuries, fear of falling and low health-related quality of life. Considerations of behavioural, environmental, psychological and physical influences (including ambulation status) are needed to meet fall prevention needs for PwMS. Thus, using a codesign process involving key stakeholders a novel online self-management fall prevention intervention was created specifically for ambulatory and non-ambulatory PwMS. The feasibility, acceptability, fidelity and outcome of this complex intervention will be explored. Findings will inform a future full-scale randomised controlled trial.

Methods and analysis

A mixed-method design will be used. Forty-eight PwMS, stratified for ambulation level, will be randomised to control (n=24) or intervention (n=24). Both groups will receive a brochure about fall risk factors and fall prevention. The intervention is group-based (eight PwMS in each group); will be delivered online; and involve six, 2-hour weekly sessions and a booster session 8 weeks after the sixth session. Each intervention group will be led by a trained facilitator. Data collection will be performed at baseline, and after seven and 18 weeks. Outcome measures will capture data on fall prevention behaviours, fear of falling, falls self-efficacy, social and everyday activities, perceived impact of MS and number of falls. Feasibility of recruitment process, data collection procedures, outcome measures, and delivery, and intervention acceptability, fidelity and outcomes will be evaluated. Both quantitative and qualitative methods will be used.

Ethics and dissemination

Ethical approval has been obtained from the Swedish Ethical Review Authority (registration number 2021-04817). Results will be disseminated in peer-review journals, at conferences, research meetings, in social media and through the patient organisation Neuro Sweden.

Trial registration number

NCT04317716.
Consensus on patient cases for hospitalised children with a high paediatric track and trigger tool score that raises no mounting concern: a Delphi process study
Authors: Jensen Claus Sixtus , Olesen Hanne Vebert , Kirkegaard Hans , Lisby Marianne
Published: July 2022

Background

Paediatric track and trigger tools (PTTTs) based on vital parameters have been implemented in hospitals worldwide to help healthcare professionals identify signs of critical illness and incipient deterioration in hospitalised children. It has been documented that nurses do not use PTTT as intended, but deviate from PTTT protocols because, in some situations, PTTT observations make little sense to them. The present study aimed to reach consensus on whether automatically generated PTTT scores that are higher than deemed reasonable by healthcare professionals according to their professional experience and clinical expertise may be downgraded.

Methods

A two-round modified Delphi technique was used to explore consensus on 14 patient cases for hospitalised children with a high PTTT score that did not raise concerns by systematically collating questionnaire responses. Participants rated their level of agreement on a 9-point Likert scale. IQR and median were calculated for each case.

Findings

A total of 221 participants completed round 1 and 101 participants completed round 2. Across the two rounds, majority of the participants were from paediatric departments, nurses and women. In round 1, consensus on inclusion was reached on 2 of the 14 cases. In round 2, consensus was reached on one additional patient case. Three of the 11 non-consensus cases remaining after rounds 1 and 2 were included by the research group based on predefined criteria.

Conclusion

In conclusion, a consensus opinion was achieved on six patient cases where the child had a high PTTT score but where the healthcare professionals were not as concerned as indicated by the PTTT score.
Comparison of ammonium, nitrate, and proton fluxes in mycorrhizal and nonmycorrhizal roots of lodgepole pine in contrasting nitrogen treatments
Authors: Hawkins Barbara J. , Robbins Samantha
Published: July 2022

Relatively few comparative studies exist of nitrogen (N) uptake by ectomycorrhizal (EM) and nonmycorrhizal roots under controlled conditions. Instantaneous and long-term N uptake by EM and nonmycorrhizal roots of lodgepole pine seedlings ( Pinus contorta (Douglas) var. latifolia (Engelm.)) were compared after 9–12 months of preconditioning under high or low N supply, with NH4+ and NO3− in proportions of 90:10 and 10:90. EM roots were inoculated with Amphinema byssoides or Laccaria bicolor. Instantaneous net NH4+, NO3−, and H+ fluxes were measured simultaneously on seedling roots with a microelectrode ion flux measurement system, and seedling organ biomass and N content were measured to infer long-term N uptake. Net NH4+ uptake was observed in EM roots of lodgepole pine but NH4+ efflux was observed in nonmycorrhizal roots. Greater instantaneous N uptake in EM roots was supported by higher root and shoot N contents in seedlings associated with L. bicolor than in noninoculated seedlings. Absence of NH4+ efflux in EM roots suggests that root colonization by EM fungi has the potential to reduce futile cycling of NH4+. EM lodgepole pine appeared to prefer NH4+ over NO3− as an N source and instantaneous NH4+ uptake rates were higher in NH4-starved roots. H+ efflux was observed in most roots. Future work should focus on a greater variety of EM species to explore differences among species in N uptake.
The cyclic AMP receptor protein (CRP) controls expression of the ferric uptake regulator (Fur) in Yersinia pestis
Authors: Liu Lei , Liu Wanbing , He Yingyu , Liu Yan , Zhang Yiquan
Published: July 2022

Yersinia pestis, the causative agent of plague, is one of the most dangerous pathogens in the world. Both the cyclic AMP receptor protein (CRP) and ferric uptake regulator (Fur) are global regulators that control the expression of a great deal of genes involved in a variety of cellular functions in Y. pestis. In this work, two CRP box-like deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) sequences were detected in the upstream DNA region of fur, suggesting that the transcription of fur might be directly regulated by CRP in Y. pestis. Thus, transcriptional regulation of fur by CRP was investigated by primer extension, quantitative real-time PCR, LacZ fusion, and electrophoretic mobility shift assays. The results demonstrated that CRP was able to bind the regulatory DNA region of fur to activate its transcription. The data presented here not only suggested that the CRP and Fur regulons were bridged together via the direct regulation of fur by CRP, but also provided us a deeper understanding of the transcriptional regulation of fur in Y. pestis.
Influence of Corporate Environmental Responsibility on R&D Investment: Dual Moderating Effects of Public Attention and Intellectual Property Protection
Authors: Luo Yuanda
Published: July 2022

As the subject of pollutant emissions, enterprises play an important role in environmental governance and should consciously fulfil their environmental responsibility. So, can the enterprise perform environmental responsibility to increase their investment in research and development (R&D)? Based on the data from China’s Shanghai and Shenzhen A-share listed enterprises in 2011–2019, this paper explores the relationship between corporate environmental responsibility and R&D investment and examines the dual moderating effects of public attention and intellectual property protection. It is found that the implementation of corporate environmental responsibility can promote R&D investment. Public attention moderates the positive relationship between corporate environmental responsibility and R&D investment; it seeks that the positive relationship becomes higher with public attention. With higher regional intellectual property protection levels, the moderating effect of public attention on corporate environmental responsibility and R&D investment will be more obviously higher. This research provides theoretical support for enterprises to fulfil their environmental responsibilities and a new perspective for revealing the factors of enterprises’ R&D investment, which can offer a foundation for future research and practices.
EfficientWord-Net: An Open Source Hotword Detection Engine Based on Few-Shot Learning
Authors: Chidhambararajan R. , Rangapur Aman , Sibi Chakkaravarthy S. , Cherukuri Aswani Kumar , Cruz Meenalosini Vimal , Ilango S. Sudhakar
Published: July 2022

Voice assistants like Siri, Google Assistant and Alexa are used widely across the globe for home automation. They require the use of unique phrases, also known as hotwords, to wake them up and perform an action like “Hey Alexa!”, “Ok, Google!”, “Hey, Siri!”. These hotword detectors are lightweight real-time engines whose purpose is to detect the hotwords uttered by the user. However, existing engines require thousands of training samples or is closed source seeking a fee. This paper attempts to solve the same, by presenting the design and implementation of a lightweight, easy-to-implement hotword detection engine based on few-shot learning. The engine detects the hotword uttered by the user in real-time with just a few training samples of the hotword. This approach is efficient when compared to existing implementations because the process of adding a new hotword to the existing systems requires enormous amounts of positive and negative training samples, and the model needs to retrain for every hotword, making the existing implementations inefficient in terms of computation and cost. The architecture proposed in this paper has achieved an accuracy of 95.40%.
Derivation, Validation, and Numerical Implementation of a Two-Dimensional Boulder Transport Formulation by Coastal Waves
Authors: Watanabe Masashi , Yoshii Takumi , Roeber Volker , Goto Kazuhisa , Imamura Fumihiko
Published: July 2022

Numerical computations for boulder transport have become a state-of-the-art tool for hindcasting the hydraulic processes associated with past storm wave and tsunami events. Since most previously developed two-dimensional formulations cater to boulders with symmetric outlines, they can consequently reproduce the transport distance and the velocity of boulders of cubic shape or similar structured geometries reasonably well. However, the formulations exhibit limitations when applied to rectangular- and flat-shaped boulders. The presently available formulations have difficulties reproducing the variations of frictional drag force due to the changes of the boulders’ contact time with the ground. We have developed an extended boulder transport formulation and derived a new empirical roughness coefficient by considering the shape of boulders that accounts for the changes of the boulders’ contact time with the ground. In comparison to other existing transport formulations, the present method provides superior accuracy of block velocity and transport distance in most cases — especially for boulders of rectangular geometry. Even by neglecting the full three-dimensional processes, numerical computations extended with the proposed boulder transport formulation can help explaining historic wave regimes, which were responsible for the transport of a variety of coastal boulders reported around the world.
Representation Learning on Variable Length and Incomplete Wearable-Sensory Time Series
Authors: Wu Xian , Huang Chao , Robles-Granda Pablo , Chawla Nitesh V.
Published: July 2022

The prevalence of wearable sensors (e.g., smart wristband) is creating unprecedented opportunities to not only inform health and wellness states of individuals, but also assess and infer personal attributes, including demographic and personality attributes. However, the data captured from wearables, such as heart rate or number of steps, present two key challenges: (1) the time series is often of variable length and incomplete due to different data collection periods (e.g., wearing behavior varies by person); and (2) there is inter-individual variability to external factors like stress and environment. This article addresses these challenges and brings us closer to the potential of personalized insights about an individual, taking the leap from quantified self to qualified self. Specifically,
HeartSpace
proposed in this article learns embedding of the time-series data with variable length and missing values via the integration of a time-series encoding module and a pattern aggregation network. Additionally,
HeartSpace
implements a Siamese-triplet network to optimize representations by jointly capturing intra- and inter-series correlations during the embedding learning process. The empirical evaluation over two different real-world data presents significant performance gains over state-of-the-art baselines in a variety of applications, including user identification, personality prediction, demographics inference, job performance prediction, and sleep duration estimation.
Multi-Interval DomLock: Toward Improving Concurrency in Hierarchies
Authors: Anju M. A. , Nasre Rupesh
Published: July 2022

Locking has been a predominant technique depended upon for achieving thread synchronization and ensuring correctness in multi-threaded applications. It has been established that the concurrent applications working with hierarchical data witness significant benefits due to multi-granularity locking (MGL) techniques compared to either fine- or coarse-grained locking. The
de facto
MGL technique used in hierarchical databases is
intention locks
, which uses a traversal-based protocol for hierarchical locking. A recent MGL implementation, dominator-based locking (DomLock), exploits interval numbering to balance the locking cost and concurrency and outperforms intention locks for non-tree-structured hierarchies. We observe, however, that depending upon the hierarchy structure and the interval numbering, DomLock pessimistically declares subhierarchies to be locked when in reality they are not. This increases the waiting time of locks and, in turn, reduces concurrency. To address this issue, we present Multi-Interval DomLock (MID), a new technique to improve the degree of concurrency of interval-based hierarchical locking. By adding additional intervals for each node,
MID
helps in reducing the unnecessary lock rejections due to false-positive lock status of sub-hierarchies. Unleashing the hidden opportunities to exploit more concurrency allows the parallel threads to finish their operations quickly, leading to notable performance improvement. We also show that with sufficient number of intervals,
MID
can avoid all the lock rejections due to false-positive lock status of nodes.
MID
is general and can be applied to any arbitrary hierarchy of trees,
Directed Acyclic Graphs (DAGs)
, and cycles. It also works with dynamic hierarchies wherein the hierarchical structure undergoes updates. We illustrate the effectiveness of
MID
using STMBench7 and, with extensive experimental evaluation, show that it leads to significant throughput improvement (up to 141%, average 106%) over DomLock.
Turkish Data-to-Text Generation Using Sequence-to-Sequence Neural Networks
Authors: Demir Seniz
Published: July 2022

End-to-end data-driven approaches lead to rapid development of language generation and dialogue systems. Despite the need for large amounts of well-organized data, these approaches jointly learn multiple components of the traditional generation pipeline without requiring costly human intervention. End-to-end approaches also enable the use of loosely aligned parallel datasets in system development by relaxing the degree of semantic correspondences between training data representations and text spans. However, their potential in Turkish language generation has not yet been fully exploited. In this work, we apply sequence-to-sequence (Seq2Seq) neural models to Turkish data-to-text generation where the input data given in the form of a meaning representation is verbalized. We explore encoder-decoder architectures with attention mechanism in unidirectional, bidirectional, and stacked recurrent neural network (RNN) models. Our models generate one-sentence biographies and dining venue descriptions using a crowdsourced dataset where all field value pairs that appear in meaning representations are fully captured in reference sentences. To support this work, we also explore the performances of our models on a more challenging dataset, where the content of a meaning representation is too large to fit into a single sentence, and hence content selection and surface realization need to be learned jointly. This dataset is retrieved by coupling introductory sentences of person-related Turkish Wikipedia articles with their contained infobox tables. Our empirical experiments on both datasets demonstrate that Seq2Seq models are capable of generating coherent and fluent biographies and venue descriptions from field value pairs. We argue that the wealth of knowledge residing in our datasets and the insights obtained from this study hold the potential to give rise to the development of new end-to-end generation approaches for Turkish and other morphologically rich languages.
YourAdvalue
Authors: Pachilakis Michalis , Papadopoulos Panagiotis , Laoutaris Nikolaos , Markatos Evangelos P. , Kourtellis Nicolas
Published: July 2022

The Real Time Bidding (RTB) protocol is by now more than a decade old. During this time, a handful of measurement papers have looked at bidding strategies, personal information flow, and cost of display advertising through RTB. In this paper, we present YourAdvalue, a privacy-preserving tool for displaying to end-users in a simple and intuitive manner their advertising value as seen through RTB. Using YourAdvalue, we measure desktopRTB prices in the wild, and compare them with desktop and mobileRTB prices reported by past work. We present how it estimates ad prices that are encrypted, and how it preserves user privacy while reporting results back to a data-server for analysis. We deployed our system, disseminated its browser extension, and collected data from 200 users, including 12000 ad impressions over 11 months.

By analyzing this dataset, we show that desktop RTB prices have grown 4.6x over desktop RTB prices measured in 2013, and 3.8x over mobile RTB prices measured in 2015. We also study how user demographics associate with the intensity of RTB ecosystem tracking, leading to higher ad prices. We find that exchanging data between advertisers and/or data brokers through cookie- syncronization increases the median value of displayed ads by 19%. We also find that female and younger users are more targeted, suffering more tracking (via cookie synchronization) than male or elder users. As a result of this targeting in our dataset, the advertising value (i) of women is 2.4x higher than that of men, (ii) of 25-34 year-olds is 2.5x higher than that of 35-44 year-olds, (iii) is most expensive on weekends and early mornings.
Argus
Authors: Regmi Hem , Sur Sanjib
Published: July 2022

We propose Argus, a system to enable millimeter-wave (mmWave) deployers to quickly complete site-surveys without sacrificing the accuracy and effectiveness of thorough network deployment surveys. Argus first models the mmWave reflection profile of an environment, considering dominant reflectors, and then uses this model to find locations that maximize the usability of the reflectors. The key component in Argus is an effective deep learning model that can map the visual data to the mmWave signal reflections of an environment and can accurately predict mmWave signal profile at any unobserved locations. It allows Argus to find the best picocell locations to provide maximum coverage and also lets users self-localize accurately anywhere in the environment. Furthermore, Argus allows mmWave picocells to predict device's orientation accurately and enables object tagging and retrieval for VR/AR applications.

We implement and validate Argus on two different buildings consisting of multiple different indoor environments. However, the generalization capability of Argus can easily update the model for unseen environments; so, Argus can be deployed to any indoor environment with little or no model fine-tuning.