bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Scrotal ulcers in an infant with multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children associated with severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 infection
Authors: Khan Hania Qamar , Srinivas Sahana M. , Sanjeeva G.N. , Swamynathan Suman , Shivappa Sanjay K.
Published: December 2021

The majority of cases of multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children (MIS‐C) manifest non‐specific mucocutaneous features. We report the case of a 3‐month‐old infant presenting with purpura, acral desquamation, and scrotal ulcers. Scrotal ulcers have not been previously reported in MIS‐C and add to the spectrum of cutaneous findings associated with the disorder.
Association between homograft tissue exposure and allosensitization prior to heart transplant in patients with congenital heart disease
Authors: Donovan Denis J. , Richmond Marc E. , Bacha Emile A. , Addonizio Linda J. , Zuckerman Warren A.
Published: December 2021

Background

Surgical repair for patients with congenital heart disease (CHD) often incorporates homograft tissue or other foreign material that can lead to allosensitization. We sought to identify the relationship between pre‐sensitization prior to heart transplant and exposure to homograft tissue in CHD patients.

Methods

Retrospective chart review of all CHD patients who underwent heart transplant at a major pediatric transplant center between 1/1/2011‐3/31/18. Operative records determined use of homograft tissue or foreign material. Panel reactive antibody (PRA) and LuminexTM single‐antigen bead (SAB) testing results were reviewed. Statistical analysis determined odds of pre‐sensitization in patients exposed to homograft tissue.

Results

Fifty‐six CHD patients underwent transplant during the review period. Thirteen patients (23%) were pre‐sensitized by PRA>10%. By SAB testing, 33 patients (59%) developed any anti‐HLA antibody >0 MFI, 30 patients (54%) >2000 MFI, and 19 patients (34%) >6000 MFI. Patients with homografts were more likely to be pre‐sensitized by PRA (OR = 7.31, p = .007), and to have developed any anti‐HLA antibody at various levels, >0 (OR = 4.52, p = .034), >2000 (OR = 8.59, p = .003), and >6000 (OR = 8.50, p = .004). Of patients with homografts, those pre‐sensitized by PRA had longer exposure times (9.80 vs 4.96 years, p = .025). There was no difference in exposure time with relation to pre‐sensitization by SAB testing.

Conclusions

Previous exposure to homograft tissue appears to increase the odds of pre‐sensitization by either the PRA or SAB testing. Longer exposure time to homograft tissue prior to transplant is associated with increased pre‐sensitization at transplant as determined by PRA, though not by SAB testing.
Designing a mobile health intervention for preterm home care: Application of conceptual framework
Authors: Phagdol Tenzin , Nayak Baby S , Lewis Leslie Edward , Margaret Binu , George Anice
Published: December 2021

Mobile health (mHealth) solutions are being widely explored in low‐ and middle‐income countries (LMICs) due to its scope in reducing the healthcare access gap and improving health outcomes. The fit of mHealth solutions to specific users and their viability in a particular setting plays a significant role in the successful adoption and sustainable implementation. This article describes the process of designing a sustainable mHealth application for delivering preterm home care to babies discharged from the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) in India. Intended end‐users are the parents, who are primary caregivers at home, especially mothers of preterm babies and healthcare providers who cared for them at the hospital. This mHealth application is designed to facilitate continuity of care for these preterm babies transitioning from an intensive healthcare setting to home with unique and complex health care needs. It is equipped to remotely monitor the growth and development for early detection of growth impairment and developmental delay often seen in preterm babies in their early years. Therefore, a mHealth application was designed applying a relevant conceptual framework for successful adoption and an ecological model for sustainability in the Indian setting.
‘Savages’ and ‘exploiters’: Exploring anti‐colonial violence in the time of war and revolution
Authors: Chokobaeva Aminat , Akulov Mikhail
Published: December 2021

The paper explores the nature of inter‐ethnic, anti‐colonial violence during the First World War and the Russian Revolution (1914–1921). It adopts a comparative approach by juxtaposing the 1916 uprising in Russian Central Asia – specifically, in the Semirech’e oblast – against the anti‐Mennonite pogroms carried out by the Ukrainian peasantry in 1919. The analysis demonstrates that the imperial state, although a significant factor, exercises a highly ambiguous influence: in one case it becomes an enabler of violence, whereas in another it poses an obstacle to it. Furthermore, the paper questions the conventional wisdom of presenting Russia’s long crisis as a two‐part process of state disintegration and subsequent state reconstitution; regional dynamics, especially the power relations between the colonized and the colonizers, need to be taken into account if one intends to construct a more comprehensive history of that period.
Is Good Credit Good? State Credit Ratings and Economic Insecurity, 1996–20121
Authors: Norris Davon , Martin Elizabeth C.
Published: December 2021

Obtaining a good credit rating is an important financial goal for governments since good credit yields lower interest rates and signals fiscal responsibility. But what does a government’s quest for better credit mean for the wellbeing of its residents? Although good credit gives governments access to cheaper borrowing to invest in socially beneficial services and infrastructure, working to obtain good credit may lead governments to act in ways that appease bondholders but are unfavorable to its residents. Using the case of state government credit ratings from 1996 to 2012, we demonstrate that increases in state credit ratings are associated with higher economic insecurity for a state’s population, net of political and economic controls, as well as state and year fixed effects. We argue these findings illustrate that despite the economic rewards, good credit becomes detrimental once we consider the potential tradeoffs relative to other socially and economically meaningful relationships.
Opening out ageing: On the entropy of all things
Authors: Andrews Gavin J. , Duff Cameron
Published: December 2021

Across the social sciences the predominant engagement with ageing is through the study of human ageing, this also the exclusive concern of the “geography of ageing”. With the aim of advancing scholarship substantially, in this paper we (re)turn to science and consider how a broader, more fundamental understanding of ageing is found in the process of increasing entropy that all entities/systems are eventually subject to and contributors towards. Based on this theoretical foundation – but cognisant of the need for a contemporary posthumanist sensibility – we challenge geographers and others to extend the study of ageing to encompass all entities/systems at all possible levels of scale and complexity, highlighting pockets of partial precedent for this extension in different literatures. We argue that, through accepting this “all‐world ageing” challenge, a more fulsome appreciation of the ageing macrocosm might be arrived at.
Background rate of low‐level HCV RNA in anti‐HCV confirmed‐positive and minipool nucleic acid test‐nonreactive blood donations
Authors: Groves Jamel A. , Y. Dodd Roger , Zhu Xiaomei , Linnen Jeffrey M. , Stramer Susan L.
Published: December 2021

Background

In 2019, the Food and Drug Administration revised the requirement for further testing of anti‐HCV‐reactive donations testing nucleic acid (NAT)‐nonreactive via routine mini‐pool (MP)‐NAT. Individual donation (ID)‐HCV NAT was required as a supplemental test prior to a second FDA‐licensed anti‐HCV assay; if ID‐HCV‐NAT is reactive, no further testing is required. This study investigated the rate of low‐level RNA in anti‐HCV‐reactive donation samples prior to and following the implementation of supplemental ID‐HCV NAT.

Study Design/Methods

A retrospective analysis was conducted on frozen plasma unit samples from 1161 anti‐HCV confirmed‐positive/HCV‐NAT‐nonreactive donations collected from December 2014 to January 2020. Samples were tested by multiple replicates on the Grifols Procleix Ultrio Elite (UE) assay and corresponding discriminatory HCV (dHCV) assay on the Procleix Panther System. Prospectively, the prevalence of low‐level RNA in 2912 anti‐HCV‐reactive donations detected through routine screening from April 2020 through March 2021 was determined.

Results

In retrospective analyses, 10 (0.86%) of 1161 plasma samples were UE reactive, of which four (0.34%) were dHCV reactive (in all replicates of UE and dHCV). Of 2912 anti‐HCV‐reactive donation samples testing NAT‐nonreactive via routine MP‐NAT, three (0.1%; 95% CI: 0.04‐0.30) were dHCV reactive; 37% of the remaining samples were reactive by a second anti‐HCV assay and thus serologically confirmed.

Conclusions

Retrospective and prospective analysis in comparison to earlier studies revealed that low‐level HCV‐RNA reactivity is decreasing over time. The very low HCV‐RNA rates may be due to the widespread use of highly effective, direct‐acting anti‐viral treatments for those diagnosed with HCV infection.
The effect of 8 weeks of physical training on muscle performance and maximal fat oxidation rates in patients treated with simvastatin and coenzyme Q10 supplementation
Authors: Kuhlman Anja Birk , Mikkelsen Lise Bluhme , Regnersgaard Signe , Heinrichsen Sophie , Nielsen Frederikke Hyldahl , Frandsen Jacob , Orlando Patrick , Silvestri Sonia , Larsen Steen , Helge Jørn Wulff , Dela Flemming
Published: December 2021

Statins are prescribed for the treatment of elevated cholesterol, but they may negatively affect metabolism, muscle performance, and the response to training. Coenzyme Q10 (CoQ10) supplementation may alleviate these effects. Combined simvastatin and CoQ10 treatment during physical training has never been tested. We studied the response to 8 weeks training (maximal oxygen uptake (), fat oxidation (MFO), the workload at which MFO occurred, and muscle strength) in statin naive dyslipidaemic patients who received simvastatin (40 mg/day) with (S + Q, n = 9) or without (S + Pl, n = 10) CoQ10 supplementation (2 × 200 mg/day) or placebo (Pl + Pl, n = 7) in a randomized, double‐blind placebo‐controlled study. and maximal workload increased with training (main effect of time, P < 0.05). MFO increased from 0.29 ± 0.10, 0.26 ± 0.10, and 0.38 ± 0.09 to 0.42 ± 0.09, 0.38 ± 0.10 and 0.48 ± 0.16 g/min in S + Q, S + Pl, and Pl + Pl, respectively (main effect of time, P = 0.0013). The workload at MFO increased from 75 ± 25, 56 ± 23, and 72 ± 17 to 106 ± 25, 84 ± 13 and 102 ± 31 W in S + Q, S + Pl, and Pl + Pl, respectively (main effect of time, P < 0.0001). Maximal voluntary contraction and rate of force development were unchanged. Exercise improved aerobic physical capacity and simvastatin with or without CoQ10 supplementation did not inhibit this adaptation. The similar increases in MFO and in the workload at which MFO occurred in response to training shows that the ability to adapt substrate selection and oxidation rates is preserved with simvastatin treatment, despite the potential negative impact of simvastatin at the mitochondrial level. CoQ10 supplementation does not augment this adaptation.

Key points

Simvastatins are prescribed for treatment of elevated cholesterol, but they may negatively affect metabolism, muscle performance and the response to training.

Coenzyme Q10 (CoQ10) supplementation may alleviate some of these effects.

We found that simvastatin treatment does not negatively affect training‐induced adaptations of substrate oxidation during exercise.

Likewise, maximal oxygen uptake increases with physical training also in patients in treatment with simvastatin.

CoQ10 supplementation in simvastatin‐treated patients presents no advantage in the adaptations to physical training

Simvastatin treatment decreases plasma concentrations of total CoQ10, but this can be alleviated by simultaneous supplementation with CoQ10
Neurotransmitter regulation rather than cell‐intrinsic properties shapes the high‐pass filtering properties of olfactory bulb glomeruli
Authors: Zak Joseph D. , Schoppa Nathan E.
Published: December 2021

GABAergic periglomerular (PG) cells in the olfactory bulb are proposed to mediate an intraglomerular ‘high‐pass’ filter through inhibition targeted onto a glomerulus. With this mechanism, weak stimuli (e.g. an odour with a low affinity for an odourant receptor) mainly produce PG cell‐driven inhibition but strong stimuli generate enough excitation to overcome inhibition. PG cells may be particularly susceptible to being activated by weak stimuli due to their intrinsically small size and high input resistance. Here, we used dual‐cell patch‐clamp recordings and imaging methods in bulb slices obtained from wild‐type and transgenic rats with labelled GABAergic cells to test a number of predictions of the high‐pass filtering model. We first directly compared the responsiveness of PG cells with that of external tufted cells (eTCs), which are a class of excitatory cells that reside in a parallel but opposing position in the glomerular circuitry. PG cells were in fact found to be no more responsive than eTCs at low levels of sensory neuron activity. While PG cells required smaller currents to be excited, this advantage was offset by the fact that a given level of sensory neuron activity produced much smaller synaptic currents. We did, however, identify other factors that shaped the excitation/inhibition balance in a manner that would support a high‐pass filter, including glial glutamate transporters and presynaptic metabotropic glutamate receptors. We conclude that a single glomerulus may act as a high‐pass filter to enhance the contrast between different olfactory stimuli through mechanisms that are largely independent cell‐intrinsic properties.

Key points

GABAergic periglomerular (PG) cells in the olfactory bulb are proposed to mediate a ‘high‐pass’ filter at a single glomerulus that selectively blocks weak stimulus signals. Their efficacy may reflect their intrinsically small size and high input resistance, which allows them to be easily excited.

It was found that PG cells were in fact no more likely to be activated by weak stimuli than excitatory neurons. PG cells fired action potentials more readily in response to a fixed current input, but this advantage for excitability was offset by small synaptic currents.

Glomeruli nevertheless display an excitation/inhibition balance that can support a high‐pass filter, shifting from unfavourable to favourable with increasing stimulus strength. Factors shaping the filter include glial glutamate transporters and presynaptic metabotropic glutamate receptors.

It is concluded that a single glomerulus may act as a high‐pass filter to enhance stimulus contrast through mechanisms that are largely independent of cell‐intrinsic properties.
Control epigenético en la transición epiteliomesénquima
Authors: Bernal Camila , Otálora Beatriz Andrea , González Daniel Mauricio , Bermúdez Litzy Gisella , Montoya Christian Fernando , Valderrama Andrea , Cristina Oñate , Castillo Ana Cathalina , Niederbacher Nicolás , Pinzón María José , Camero Carlos , García Francisco Javier , Grajales Diana Marcela , Cañas Alejandra , Rojas Adriana Patricia , Sánchez Velásquez Paula Andrea
Published: December 2021

El proceso transición epitelio mesénquima (TEM) permite que una célula epitelial de manera temporal, adquiera un fenotipo mesenquimal como respuesta a un estímulo interno o externo. Este proceso se caracteriza  por la activación y represión de genes involucrados en diferentes vías de señalización asociadas con migración, invasión y apoptosis, entre otros. En este proceso la epigenética cumple un papel fundamental. La epigenética comprende cuatro mecanismos: metilación de ADN, modificación covalente de histonas, ARN no codificantes (ARNnc) y complejos remodeladores de la cromatina, que regulan la expresión de un gen sin alterar su secuencia. En esta revisión de tema los autores describen los principales mecanismos epigenéticos involucrados en la regulación de la expresión de genes que se activan y reprimen concomitantemente en las tres fases del proceso TEM: fase no migratoria, fase premigratoria y fase migratoria.
The nuclear transcription factor, TAF7, is a cytoplasmic regulator of protein synthesis
Authors: Cheng Dan , Semmens Kevin , McManus Elizabeth , Chen Qingrong , Meerzaman Daoud , Wang Xiantao , Hafner Markus , Lewis Brian A. , Takahashi Hidehisa , Devaiah Ballachanda N. , Gegonne Anne , Singer Dinah S.
Published: December 2021

Transcription factor TAF7 links transcription and translation by delivering its transcripts to polysomes for translation.
Mechanical oscillations orchestrate axial patterning through Wnt activation in
Hydra
Authors: Ferenc Jaroslav , Papasaikas Panagiotis , Ferralli Jacqueline , Nakamura Yukio , Smallwood Sebastien , Tsiairis Charisios D.
Published: December 2021

Mechanochemical feedback drives patterning in
Hydra
tissue during regeneration.
A new model to deliver scheduled outpatient care
Authors: Martin Tiffany , Hapca Sandra , Mistry Nikita , Steel Ruqayyah , Tse Yi , Lumsden Thomas , Crofton Adrian , Turner Stephen W
Published: December 2021

Here we describe an integrated model for scheduled care (the ‘cluster clinic’). Following a pilot in April 2018, cluster clinics were established across Aberdeen City from April 2019 but not the area surrounding Aberdeen (ie, Aberdeenshire). There were 2360 referrals in 2017/2018 (pre-cluster clinic), and 2615 in 2019/2020 (post-Aberdeen City cluster clinics). The proportions of referrals from City practices seen pre-cluster and post-cluster were 72% and 56%, respectively, and from Shire practices the corresponding proportions were 70% and 65%. The cluster clinic received positive feedback from parents and referring clinicians and was not associated with increased ‘missed diagnoses’ compared with business as usual clinic. The cluster clinic model is a realistic and effective method to deliver integrated scheduled care for children.
Use of antibiotics and colorectal cancer risk: a primary care nested case–control study in Belgium
Authors: Van der Meer Johannes , Mamouris Pavlos , Nassiri Vahid , Vaes Bert , van den Akker Marjan
Published: December 2021

Objectives

To examine the association between the use of oral antibiotics and subsequent colorectal cancer risk.

Design

Matched case–control study.

Setting

General practice centres participating in the Integrated Computerised Network database in Flanders, Belgium.

Participants

In total, 1705 cases of colorectal cancer diagnosed between 01 January 2010 and 31 December 2015 were matched to 6749 controls by age, sex, comorbidity and general practice centre.

Primary outcome measure

The association between the number of prescriptions for oral antibiotics and the incidence of colorectal cancer over a period of 1–10 years, estimated by a conditional logistic regression model.

Results

A significantly increased risk of colorectal cancer (OR 1.25, 95% CI 1.10 to 1.44) was found in subjects with one or more prescriptions compared with those with none after correction for diabetes mellitus. No dose-response relationship was found.

Conclusions

This study resulted in a modestly higher risk of having colorectal cancer diagnosed after antibiotic exposure. The main limitation was missing data on known risk factors, in particular smoking behaviour. This study did not allow us to examine the causality of the relationship, indicating the need of further investigation.
Severity of COVID-19 and adverse long-term outcomes: a retrospective cohort study based on a US electronic health record database
Authors: Jovanoski Nick , Chen Xin , Becker Ursula , Zalocusky Kelly , Chawla Devika , Tsai Larry , Borm Michelle , Neighbors Margaret , Yau Vincent
Published: December 2021

Objective

To identify potential risk factors for adverse long-term outcomes (LTOs) associated with COVID-19, using a large electronic health record (EHR) database.

Design

Retrospective cohort study. Patients with COVID-19 were assigned into subcohorts according to most intensive treatment setting experienced. Newly diagnosed conditions were classified as respiratory, cardiovascular or mental health LTOs at >30–≤90 or >90–≤180 days after COVID-19 diagnosis or hospital discharge. Multivariate regression analysis was performed to identify any association of treatment setting (as a proxy for disease severity) with LTO incidence.

Setting

Optum deidentified COVID-19 EHR dataset drawn from hospitals and clinics across the USA.

Participants

Individuals diagnosed with COVID-19 (N=57 748) from 20 February to 4 July 2020.

Main outcomes

Incidence of new clinical conditions after COVID-19 diagnosis or hospital discharge and the association of treatment setting (as a proxy for disease severity) with their risk of occurrence.

Results

Patients were assigned into one of six subcohorts: outpatient (n=22 788), emergency room (ER) with same-day COVID-19 diagnosis (n=11 633), ER with COVID-19 diagnosis≤21 days before ER visit (n=2877), hospitalisation without intensive care unit (ICU; n=16 653), ICU without ventilation (n=1837) and ICU with ventilation (n=1960). Respiratory LTOs were more common than cardiovascular or mental health LTOs across subcohorts and LTO incidence was higher in hospitalised versus non-hospitalised subcohorts. Patients with the most severe disease were at increased risk of respiratory (risk ratio (RR) 1.86, 95% CI 1.56 to 2.21), cardiovascular (RR 2.65, 95% CI 1.49 to 4.43) and mental health outcomes (RR 1.52, 95% CI 1.20 to 1.91) up to 6 months after hospital discharge compared with outpatients.

Conclusions

Patients with severe COVID-19 had increased risk of new clinical conditions up to 6 months after hospital discharge. The extent that treatment setting (eg, ICU) contributed to these conditions is unknown, but strategies to prevent COVID-19 progression may nonetheless minimise their occurrence.
Nitrogen management strategies on plant growth and severities of Sclerotinia stem rot of canola in eastern Canada
Authors: Gao Fen , Chen Yuanhong , Lim SeaRa , Xue Allen G. , Ma Bao-Luo
Published: December 2021

Effective nitrogen (N) management strategies are important for ensuring a balance between optimizing plant growth and minimizing disease damage. A field experiment was conducted for three years to (i) assess the effects of N fertilizer application on the growth and seed yield of canola and severities of Sclerotinia stem rot (SSR), and (ii) to determine a reasonable N-rate for optimizing plant growth and minimizing the loss from SSR in eastern Canada. The experiment was designed with factorial combinations of eight N treatments and two canola hybrids. All N treatments reduced canola emergence with increasing preplant N application rates above 100 kg ha−1, but had a positive impact on plant height, fresh weight, dry weight, and seed yield. The development of SSR showed differential responses to N application rates. Of all the treatments, the split application (50 kg N ha−1 at preplant plus 100 kg N ha−1 side-dressed at the 6-leaf stage) increased canola growth and often produced the highest or similar seed yields to those of equivalent N rate applied as preplant. At the 150 kg ha−1 N rate, no severe development of SSR was observed in either preplant-only or split application. Overall, this study demonstrates that the split-N management strategy (50 + 100 kg ha−1) maintained a balance between enhancing plant growth and mitigating the negative impacts of SSR on canola.
Deforming convex bodies in Minkowski geometry
Authors: Rovenski V. , Walczak P.
Published: December 2021

We introduce and study certain deformation of Minkowski norms in [Formula: see text] determined by a set of [Formula: see text] linearly independent 1-forms and a smooth positive function of [Formula: see text] variables. In particular, the deformation of a Euclidean norm [Formula: see text] produces a Minkowski norm defined in our recent work; its indicatrix is a rotation hypersurface with a [Formula: see text]-dimensional axis passing through the origin. For [Formula: see text], our deformation generalizes the construction of [Formula: see text]-norms which form a rich class of “computable” Minkowski norms and play an important role in Finsler geometry. We characterize such pairs of a Minkowski norm and its image that Cartan torsions of the two norms either coincide or differ by a [Formula: see text]-reducible term. We conjecture that for [Formula: see text] any Minkowski norm can be approximated by images of a Euclidean norm.
Roles of modified Chaplygin–Jacobi and Chaplygin–Abel gases in FRW universe
Authors: Debnath Ujjal
Published: December 2021

In this paper, we have considered flat Friedmann–Robertson–Walker (FRW) model of the universe and reviewed the modified Chaplygin gas as the fluid source. Associated with the scalar field model, we have determined the Hubble parameter as a generating function in terms of the scalar field. Instead of hyperbolic function, we have taken Jacobi elliptic function and Abel function in the generating function and obtained modified Chaplygin–Jacobi gas (MCJG) and modified Chaplygin–Abel gas (MCAG) equation of states, respectively. Next, we have assumed that the universe is filled in dark matter, radiation, and dark energy. The sources of dark energy candidates are assumed as MCJG and MCAG. We have constrained the model parameters by recent observational data analysis. Using [Formula: see text] minimum test (maximum likelihood estimation), we have determined the best-fit values of the model parameters by OHD[Formula: see text]CMB[Formula: see text]BAO[Formula: see text]SNIa joint data analysis. To examine the viability of the MCJG and MCAG models, we have determined the values of the deviations of information criteria like △AIC, △BIC and △DIC. The evolutions of cosmological and cosmographical parameters (like equation of state, deceleration, jerk, snap, lerk, statefinder, Om diagnostic) have been studied for our best-fit values of model parameters. To check the classical stability of the models, we have examined the values of square speed of sound [Formula: see text] in the interval [Formula: see text] for expansion of the universe.
Phonons transmission through atomic interface connecting two semi-infinite 2D lattices with different meshes
Authors: Sait Smail , Bourahla Boualem
Published: December 2021

A calculation of the phonon contribution to the coherent transport between two-dimensional (2D) lattices is presented in this paper. The model structure is obtained by the juxtaposition of semi-infinites square ([Formula: see text] and triangular ([Formula: see text] leads, which thus define the nanojunction [Formula: see text]/[Formula: see text] and its inverse [Formula: see text]/[Formula: see text]. We determine, numerically and by simulation, the 2D interface observables for different values of masses and elastic coupling in the nanojunction zone. The local dynamics and atomic nanojunction response to the microscopic changes, in the interfacial domain, are subjects to our investigation. The theoretical formalism based on the matching technique is applied to describe the lattice dynamics and the evanescent phonon modes, in the two studied 2D interfaces. We mainly analyze the vibration spectra, the coherent phonon transmission/reflection and the phononic transmittance through the interface, as elements of a Landauer–Büttiker type scattering matrix. The obtained results show that the nanojunction domain is an effective phonon splitter and suggest that its characteristics may be controlled by varying its nanometric parameters. The observed fluctuations are due to the coherent coupling between continuum modes and the phonons’ discrete states induced by the connected atomic sites.
Association of Corporate Governance with Intellectual Capital Performance: A Study of S&P 200 Companies
Authors: Soriya Sushila , Kumar Narender
Published: December 2021

This paper aims to investigate the relationship between intellectual capital efficiency and the attributes of corporate governance in the top 116 companies from 2012 to 2018. The VAIC has been calculated for the sample chosen, which did not include financial companies. The relationship between corporate governance structure and intellectual capital performance was investigated using panel data regression analysis. Results have shown that board size is negatively associated with intellectual capital and its components. CEO duality, on the other hand, is not found to be associated with intellectual capital performance. This study also shows that intellectual capital performance and human capital efficiency are negatively correlated with board independence, Indian promoters, institutional ownership, and foreign ownership. The components of intellectual capital performance, on the other hand, have yielded mixed results. The findings could be useful to policymakers while deciding on the composition and structure of the board.
See What I Mean? Analogical Objects for Knowledge Mediation in Early Phases of Cross-Industry Innovation
Authors: Lyng Hilda Bø , Brun Eric Christian
Published: December 2021

The objective of this research is to explore the nature and role of analogies as objects for knowledge transfer in cross-industry collaborations. A case study of an organization seeking cross-industry innovation (CII) across two industry sectors was conducted, and the empirical data were analyzed qualitatively. We found that analogies used as knowledge mediation objects could be classified as explanatory or inventive, each expressed as linguistic or visual representations. Explanatory analogical objects help build prior knowledge of a foreign industry domain, thus easing later use of inventive analogical objects to identify how knowledge from one industry can be applied in another industry for innovation purposes. In these roles, the analogies serve as boundary objects. Both explanatory and inventive analogies can also serve as epistemic objects, motivating for further collaborative engagement. Visual representations of analogies help bridge the abstract with the concrete, thereby easing the process of creating analogies. They also enable nonverbal communication, thus helping bypass language barriers between knowledge domains. The reported research expands current research literature on knowledge mediation objects to the context of CII and provides added detailed understanding of the use of analogies in CII.
Application of geophysical and hydrogeological analyses to predict water and hydrocarbon entry to the T5 Tunnel, west Iran
Authors: Moradi Mohammad , Mozafari Morteza , Bolourchi Mohammad Javad , Aliyari Alireza , Palshin Nikolay A. , Aleksanova Elena D.
Published: December 2021

The Garmsiri Project, including the 4.5 km long T5 Tunnel, is under construction in western Iran. The T5 Tunnel passes through the NW–SE-trending Emam Hasan Anticline (EHA), perpendicular to the fold axis. The fold is mainly composed of marlstone and argillaceous limestone layers of Cretaceous to Miocene age, incorporating the Pabdeh–Gurpi Formation, karst limestone of the Asmari Formation, and marlstone and gypsum of the Gachsaran Formation. There was a risk of water entry into the tunnel as it was constructed below the regional groundwater table elevation. In addition, the entry of hydrocarbons, in either liquid or vapour phase, into the tunnel was possible owing to the presence of numerous active bitumen mines in the vicinity of the anticline. To predict the risk of water or hydrocarbon entry geological and hydrogeological analyses together with the audio magnetotelluric (AMT) method were applied. Based on the field work, resistivity and geological cross-sections were provided along the tunnel path. Several boreholes were drilled along the tunnel route and water-table elevation, rock quality designation (RQD) and permeability values were measured. To determine a broad range of features related to the anticline, 55 AMT stations were positioned along the tunnel route. Dimensionality analysis confirmed 2D dimensionality of the AMT transfer functions, which allowed us to apply the 2D bimodal inversion using a non-linear conjugate gradient algorithm. Integration of the geological and hydrogeological data with the resistivity model resulted in a more detailed geological section along the tunnel, including water-table elevation and identification of highly conductive zones in which bitumen migrated. It was predicted that water entry would be observed through the Asmari Formation and also that elevated H
2
S concentrations would be encountered during drilling in the anomalous conductive zones. Monitoring results and field observations gained during the tunnel construction were compared with the predictions.
DeepVecFont
Authors: Wang Yizhi , Lian Zhouhui
Published: December 2021

Automatic font generation based on deep learning has aroused a lot of interest in the last decade. However, only a few recently-reported approaches are capable of directly generating vector glyphs and their results are still far from satisfactory. In this paper, we propose a novel method, DeepVecFont, to effectively resolve this problem. Using our method, for the first time, visually-pleasing vector glyphs whose quality and compactness are both comparable to human-designed ones can be automatically generated. The key idea of our DeepVecFont is to adopt the techniques of image synthesis, sequence modeling and differentiable rasterization to exhaustively exploit the dual-modality information (i.e., raster images and vector outlines) of vector fonts. The highlights of this paper are threefold. First, we design a dual-modality learning strategy which utilizes both image-aspect and sequence-aspect features of fonts to synthesize vector glyphs. Second, we provide a new generative paradigm to handle unstructured data (e.g., vector glyphs) by randomly sampling plausible synthesis results to get the optimal one which is further refined under the guidance of generated structured data (e.g., glyph images). Finally, qualitative and quantitative experiments conducted on a publicly-available dataset demonstrate that our method obtains high-quality synthesis results in the applications of vector font generation and interpolation, significantly outperforming the state of the art.
Differentiable time-gated rendering
Authors: Wu Lifan , Cai Guangyan , Ramamoorthi Ravi , Zhao Shuang
Published: December 2021

The continued advancements of time-of-flight imaging devices have enabled new imaging pipelines with numerous applications. Consequently, several forward rendering techniques capable of accurately and efficiently simulating these devices have been introduced. However, general-purpose differentiable rendering techniques that estimate derivatives of time-of-flight images are still lacking. In this paper, we introduce a new theory of differentiable time-gated rendering that enjoys the generality of differentiating with respect to arbitrary scene parameters. Our theory also allows the design of advanced Monte Carlo estimators capable of handling cameras with near-delta or discontinuous time gates.

We validate our theory by comparing derivatives generated with our technique and finite differences. Further, we demonstrate the usefulness of our technique using a few proof-of-concept inverse-rendering examples that simulate several time-of-flight imaging scenarios.
AdaptiBrush
Authors: Rosales Enrique , Araújo Chrystiano , Rodriguez Jafet , Vining Nicholas , Yoon Dongwook , Sheffer Alla
Published: December 2021

Virtual reality drawing applications let users draw 3D shapes using brushes that form
ribbon
shaped, or ruled-surface, strokes. Each ribbon is uniquely defined by its user-specified ruling length, path, and the ruling directions at each point along this path. Existing brushes use the trajectory of a handheld controller in 3D space as the ribbon path, and compute the ruling directions using a
fixed
mapping from a specific controller coordinate-frame axis. This fixed mapping forces users to rotate the controller and thus their wrists to change ribbon normal or ruling directions, and requires substantial physical effort to draw even medium complexity ribbons. Since human ability to rotate their wrists continuously is heavily restricted, the space of ribbon geometries users can comfortably draw using these brushes is limited. These brushes can be unpredictable, producing ribbons with unexpectedly varying width or flipped and wobbly normals in response to seemingly natural hand gestures. Our
AdaptiBrush
ribbon brush system dramatically extends the space of ribbon geometries users can comfortably draw while enabling them to accurately predict the ribbon shape that a given hand motion produces. We achieve this by introducing a novel
adaptive
ruling direction computation method, enabling users to easily change ribbon ruling and normal orientation using predominantly translational controller, and thus wrist, motion. We facilitate ease-of-use by computing predictable ruling directions that smoothly change in both world and controller coordinate systems, and facilitate ease-of-learning by prioritizing ruling directions which are well-aligned with one of the controller coordinate system axes. Our comparative user studies confirm that our more general and predictable ruling computation leads to significant improvements in brush usability and effectiveness compared to all prior brushes; in a head to head comparison users preferred AdaptiBrush over the next-best brush by a margin of 2 to 1.
Neural marching cubes
Authors: Chen Zhiqin , Zhang Hao
Published: December 2021

We introduce
Neural Marching Cubes
, a
data-driven
approach for extracting a triangle mesh from a discretized implicit field. We base our meshing approach on Marching Cubes (MC), due to the simplicity of its input, namely a uniform grid of signed distances or occupancies, which frequently arise in surface reconstruction and from neural implicit models. However, classical MC is defined by coarse tessellation templates isolated to individual cubes. While more refined tessellations have been proposed by several MC variants, they all make heuristic assumptions, such as trilinearity, when determining the vertex positions and local mesh topologies in each cube. In principle, none of these approaches can reconstruct geometric features that reveal coherence or dependencies between nearby cubes (e.g., a
sharp edge
), as such information is unaccounted for, resulting in poor estimates of the true underlying implicit field. To tackle these challenges, we re-cast MC from a deep learning perspective, by designing tessellation templates more apt at preserving geometric features, and learning the vertex positions and mesh topologies from training meshes, to account for
contextual
information from nearby cubes. We develop a compact per-cube parameterization to represent the output triangle mesh, while being compatible with neural processing, so that a simple 3D convolutional network can be employed for the training. We show that all topological cases in each cube that are applicable to our design can be easily derived using our representation, and the resulting tessellations can also be obtained naturally and efficiently by following a few design guidelines. In addition, our network learns local features with limited receptive fields, hence it generalizes well to new shapes and new datasets. We evaluate our neural MC approach by quantitative and qualitative comparisons to all well-known MC variants. In particular, we demonstrate the ability of our network to recover sharp features such as edges and corners, a long-standing issue of MC and its variants. Our network also reconstructs local mesh topologies more accurately than previous approaches. Code and data are available at https://github.com/czq142857/NMC.
ICTree
Authors: Polasek Tomas , Hrusa David , Benes Bedrich , Čadík Martin
Published: December 2021

Many algorithms for virtual tree generation exist, but the visual realism of the 3D models is unknown. This problem is usually addressed by performing limited user studies or by a side-by-side visual comparison. We introduce an automated system for realism assessment of the tree model based on their perception. We conducted a user study in which 4,000 participants compared over one million pairs of images to collect subjective perceptual scores of a large dataset of virtual trees. The scores were used to train two neural-network-based predictors. A view independent ICTreeF uses the tree model's geometric features that are easy to extract from any model. The second is ICTreeI that estimates the perceived visual realism of a tree from its image. Moreover, to provide an insight into the problem, we deduce intrinsic attributes and evaluate which features make trees look like real trees. In particular, we show that branching angles, length of branches, and widths are critical for perceived realism. We also provide three datasets: carefully curated 3D tree geometries and tree skeletons with their perceptual scores, multiple views of the tree geometries with their scores, and a large dataset of images with scores suitable for training deep neural networks.
Q-zip
Authors: Feng Leman , Tong Yiying , Desbrun Mathieu
Published: December 2021

Singularity editing of a quadrangle mesh consists in shifting singularities around for either improving the quality of the mesh elements or canceling extraneous singularities, so as to increase mesh regularity. However, the particular structure of a quad mesh renders the exploration of allowable connectivity changes non-local and hard to automate. In this paper, we introduce a simple, principled, and general
quad-mesh editing primitive
with which pairs of arbitrarily distant singularities can be efficiently displaced around a mesh through a deterministic and reversible chain of local topological operations with a minimal footprint. Dubbed Q-zip as it acts as a zipper opening up and collapsing down quad strips, our practical mesh operator for singularity editing can be easily implemented via parallel transport of a reference compass between any two irregular vertices. Batches of Q-zips performed in parallel can then be used for efficient singularity editing.
Learning to reconstruct botanical trees from single images
Authors: Li Bosheng , Kałużny Jacek , Klein Jonathan , Michels Dominik L. , Pałubicki Wojtek , Benes Bedrich , Pirk Sören
Published: December 2021

We introduce a novel method for reconstructing the 3D geometry of botanical trees from single photographs. Faithfully reconstructing a tree from single-view sensor data is a challenging and open problem because many possible 3D trees exist that fit the tree's shape observed from a single view. We address this challenge by defining a reconstruction pipeline based on three neural networks. The networks simultaneously mask out trees in input photographs, identify a tree's species, and obtain its 3D radial bounding volume - our novel 3D representation for botanical trees. Radial bounding volumes (RBV) are used to orchestrate a procedural model primed on learned parameters to grow a tree that matches the main branching structure and the overall shape of the captured tree. While the RBV allows us to faithfully reconstruct the main branching structure, we use the procedural model's morphological constraints to generate realistic branching for the tree crown. This constraints the number of solutions of tree models for a given photograph of a tree. We show that our method reconstructs various tree species even when the trees are captured in front of complex backgrounds. Moreover, although our neural networks have been trained on synthetic data with data augmentation, we show that our pipeline performs well for real tree photographs. We evaluate the reconstructed geometries with several metrics, including leaf area index and maximum radial tree distances.
Barbershop
Authors: Zhu Peihao , Abdal Rameen , Femiani John , Wonka Peter
Published: December 2021

Seamlessly blending features from multiple images is extremely challenging because of complex relationships in lighting, geometry, and partial occlusion which cause coupling between different parts of the image. Even though recent work on GANs enables synthesis of realistic hair or faces, it remains difficult to combine them into a single, coherent, and plausible image rather than a disjointed set of image patches. We present a novel solution to image blending, particularly for the problem of hairstyle transfer, based on GAN-inversion. We propose a novel latent space for image blending which is better at preserving detail and encoding spatial information, and propose a new GAN-embedding algorithm which is able to slightly modify images to conform to a common segmentation mask. Our novel representation enables the transfer of the visual properties from multiple reference images including specific details such as moles and wrinkles, and because we do image blending in a latent-space we are able to synthesize images that are coherent. Our approach avoids blending artifacts present in other approaches and finds a globally consistent image. Our results demonstrate a significant improvement over the current state of the art in a user study, with users preferring our blending solution over 95 percent of the time. Source code for the new approach is available at https://zpdesu.github.io/Barbershop.
Volume decomposition for two-piece rigid casting
Authors: Alderighi Thomas , Malomo Luigi , Bickel Bernd , Cignoni Paolo , Pietroni Nico
Published: December 2021

We introduce a novel technique to automatically decompose an input object's volume into a set of parts that can be represented by two opposite height fields. Such decomposition enables the manufacturing of individual parts using two-piece reusable rigid molds. Our decomposition strategy relies on a new energy formulation that utilizes a pre-computed signal on the mesh volume representing the accessibility for a predefined set of extraction directions. Thanks to this novel formulation, our method allows for efficient optimization of a fabrication-aware partitioning of volumes in a completely automatic way. We demonstrate the efficacy of our approach by generating valid volume partitionings for a wide range of complex objects and physically reproducing several of them.