bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Uniportal video-assisted thoracoscopic surgery without drainage-tube placement for pulmonary wedge resection: a single-center retrospective study
Authors: Ahn Seha , Moon Youngkyu
Published: October 2022

Background
Uniportal video-assisted thoracoscopic surgery without drainage-tube placement has been demonstrated to be safe and feasible for select situations. The purpose of this study is to assess the demographic, baseline, and intraoperative characteristics of patients who developed residual pneumothorax after thoracic surgery without drainage-tube placement.
Methods
We reviewed the records of all patients who underwent pulmonary wedge resection via uniportal video-assisted thoracoscopic surgery without drainage-tube placement between May 2019 and May 2022. The decision to omit chest-tube drainage was originally made on a case-by-case basis, using internal criteria. Postoperative chest radiography was performed on the day of surgery, on postoperative day 1, at the first outpatient visit, and at 1 month after surgery.
Results
A total of 134 patients met the selection criteria; 23 (17.2%) had residual pneumothorax on chest radiography on postoperative day 1, and 5 (3.7%) had residual pneumothorax at the first outpatient visit. Only 1 patient (0.7%) had residual pneumothorax on chest radiography at 1 month after surgery; this patient did not require chest-tube insertion or any other intervention. The presence of partial pleural adhesions independently increased the risk for postoperative residual pneumothorax on chest radiography, whereas older patient age reduced the risk.
Conclusions
Uniportal video-assisted thoracoscopic surgery for pulmonary wedge resection without drainage-tube placement is both safe and feasible for carefully selected patients. Most patients with residual pneumothorax in our study experienced spontaneous resolution, and none required reintervention.
Nonlinear Rayleigh wave propagation in thermoelastic media in dual-phase-lag.
Authors: Youssef Aya A. , Amein Nehad K. , Abdelrahman Nora S. , Abou-Dina Moustafa S. , Ghaleb Ahmed F.
Published: October 2022

A model of generalized thermoelasticity within dual-phase-lag is used to investigate nonlinear Rayleigh wave propagation in a half-space of a transversely isotropic elastic material. It is assumed that the coefficient of heat conduction is temperature-dependent, a fact that plays an important role in the coupling behaviour analysis of thermoelastic and piezo-thermoelastic solids. Taking such a dependence into account becomes a necessity at higher temperatures, when the material properties can no longer be considered as constants. Normal mode analysis is applied to find a particular solution to the problem under consideration. A concrete case is solved under prescribed boundary conditions and tentative values of the different material coefficients. The results are discussed to reveal the effect of temperature dependence of the heat conduction coefficient, as well as the thermal relaxation times, on nonlinear Rayleigh wave propagation. All quantities of practical interest are illustrated in two-and three-dimensional plots. The presented results may be useful in the detection of the second harmonic amplitudes through measurements related to the propagating heat wave.
Harnessing Adaptive Bistable Stiffness Inspired by Hair- Cell-Bundle Structure in Human Cochlea
Authors: Yoon Jong-Yun , Kim Gi-Woo
Published: October 2022

This study presents an initial study on the adaptive bistable stiffness of hair cell bundle structure in a human cochlea and aims to harness its bistable nonlinearity that features a negative stiffness region. Typically, hair cell bundle structures inside the human auditory system comprise a conical bundle structure constituting multiple tiny long cylinders called Stereocilia. Their primary function is to send electrical impulse signals to the brain in response to the vertical oscillation produced by the travelling wave propagation on the basilar membrane of the cochlea and to shift the region of better sensitivity through their mechanical adaption capability. In this study, the harmonic balance method was employed to understand the amplifying of the movements of hair cells over broad frequency ranges, and hair cell’s dynamic behaviors induced by bistable stiffness characteristics are projected on phase diagrams, and Poincare maps concerning the bifurcation. In this study, we investigate the nonlinear frequency responses of the hair cell bundle structure, deducing that the transferred sound signals can be significantly amplified, as observed in the super- and subharmonic response regimes. This study offers promising potential engineering applications to harness adaptive bistable stiffness.
Genome wide association analysis for grain moisture content and dehydration rate on maize hybrids
Authors: Dong Yuan , Feng Zhiqian , Ye Fan , Li Ting , Li Guoliang , Li Zhoushuai , Hao Yinchuan , Zhang Xinghua , Liu Wenxin , Xue JiQuan , Xu Shutu
Published: October 2022

For mechanized maize production, a low grain water content (GWC) at harvest is necessary. However, as a complex quantitative trait, the genetic mechanism of GWC remains unclear, especially in hybrids. In this study, a hybrid population through two environments including 442 F1 was used for genome-wide association analysis of GWC and the grain dehydration rate (GDR), using the area under the dry down curve (AUDDC) as the index. Then, we identified 19 and 17 associated SNPs for GWC and AUDDC, including 10 co-localized SNPs, along with 64 and 77 pairs of epistatic SNPs for GWC and AUDDC, respectively. These loci could explain 11.39–68.2% of the total phenotypic variation for GWC and 41.07–67.02% for AUDDC at different stages, whose major effect was the additive and epistatic effect. By exploring the candidate genes around the significant sites, a total of 398 and 457 possible protein-coding genes were screened, including autophagy pathway and auxin regulation related genes, and five inbred lines with the potential to reduce GWC in the combined F1 hybrid were identified. Our research not only provides a certain reference for the genetic mechanism analysis of GWC in hybrids but also provides an added reference for breeding low-GWC materials.
NDVI, nutrient accumulation and yield of onion fertilized with amorphous silica in a semiarid setting in Brazil
Authors: Nascimento Clistenes Williams Araujo do , Barros Marcos Kleber Dias , Silva Fernando Bruno Vieira da , Lima Luiz Henrique Vieira , Silva Franklone Lima da , Veloso Venâncio de Lima , Silva Josévaldo Ribeiro , Lins Simone Aparecida da Silva
Published: October 2022

Purpose
Silicon (Si) can reduce abiotic stresses in plants and increase crop yield in semiarid climates. We aimed to assess the effect of an amorphous silica-based fertilizer (ASF) applied to soil on the yield, mineral nutrition, and health of an onion crop grown in northeast Brazil.
Methods
The ASF was applied at the rates of 0, 75, 125, 175, and 225 kg ha− 1. Yield and quality of bulbs as well as leaf concentrations of Si and nutrients were evaluated. Stress amelioration was assessed through Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI).
Results
ASF increased the yield of onions and enhanced the concentration of Si, N, P, K, Ca, Mg, B, Mn, Zn, and Cu in leaves. There was no ASF effect on bulb quality. NDVI indicated that applying 225 kg ha− 1 ASF to soil promoted healthier onion plants and the highest yield.
Conclusions
Silicon increased the yield of onions due to improved plant nutrition and stress amelioration.
Association between allostatic load and adverse outcomes among older patients with heart failure with preserved ejection fraction
Authors: Hao Benchuan , Chen Jianqiao , Cai Yulun , Li Huiying , Zhu Zifan , Xu Weihao , Liu Hongbin
Published: October 2022

Background
The present study aimed to investigate the association between allostatic load (AL) and adverse outcomes, including mortality and heart failure (HF) admission, among elderly male patients who had heart failure with preserved ejection fraction (HFpEF).
Methods
A prospective cohort study of 1111 elderly male patients with HFpEF, diagnosed between 2015 and 2019 and followed up through 2021. We constructed an AL measure using a combination of 10 biomarkers, including fasting glucose, hemoglobin, systolic blood pressure, diastolic blood pressure, heart rate, total cholesterol, triglycerides, highdensity lipoprotein cholesterol, neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio, and creatinine. The diagnosis of HFpEF was made according to the 2016 European Society of Cardiology guidelines. A Cox proportional hazards model was used to determine the associations between AL and adverse outcomes.
Results
In multivariate analysis, AL was significantly associated with increased risk of all-cause mortality (medium AL: adjusted hazard ratio [HR] = 2.75; 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.31–5.75; high AL: HR = 3.22; 95% CI 1.44–7.19; per-score increase: HR = 1.27; 95% CI 1.13–1.43), cardiovascular mortality (medium AL: HR = 3.42; 95% CI 1.16–10.13; high AL: HR = 4.14; 95% CI 1.27–13.43; per-score increase: HR = 1.28; 95% CI 1.07–1.53), non-cardiovascular mortality (medium AL: HR = 2.96; 95% CI 1.05–8.32; high AL: HR = 3.53; 95% CI 1.12–11.14; per-score increase: HR = 1.33; 95% CI 1.13–1.57), and HF admission (medium AL: HR = 2.32; 95% CI 1.10–4.87; high AL: HR = 3.03; 95% CI 1.33–6.92; per-score increase: HR = 1.24; 95% CI 1.10–1.40). Consistent results were found in multiple subgroup analyses.
Conclusions
A higher AL burden was associated with increased risk for poor prognosis in elderly men with HFpEF. AL relies on information that is easily obtained in regular physical examinations and can be assessed in various care and clinical settings to determine risk and help improve prognosis in patients with HFpEF.
Efficacy of Mirabegron in Medical Expulsive Therapy for Ureteral Stones: A Systematic Review and Updated Meta-analysis
Authors: Liu Qiang , Zhu Shuxia , Huang Chaoyou
Published: October 2022

The possibility of using mirabegron as a new medical expulsive therapy agent for ureteral stones has been studied owing to its relaxant effects on the ureteral smooth muscle. The objective of this study was to update the evidence regarding the efficacy of mirabegron in medical expulsive therapy for the management of ureteral calculi. We systematically searched PubMed, Cochrane library and Embase to collect the clinical trials from inception dates to August 2022. Meta-analysis and forest-plot figures were calculated with the software review manager v5.0. Six studies with 462 patients were eligible for inclusion. Mirabegron achieved significantly higher expulsion rate than control (pooled RR: 1.44, 95% CI: 1.12, 1.86; P = 0.004). A subgroup analyses showed that mirabegron has a significantly higher expulsion rate on stone sizes smaller than 5/6 mm (RR 1.4; 95% CI: 1.11–1.77; P = 0.005). The superior effect was not observed on stone sizes > 5/6 mm (RR 1.04; 95% CI: 0.80–1.35; P = 0.77). The pooled data showed no significant difference in the expulsion time between mirabegron and control group (MD: -0.53, 95% CI -5.77–4.71; P = 0.84). There was no significant difference between the mirabegron group and the control group in the episodes of renal colic (MD -0.18; 95% CI -0.39–0.02; P = 0.08). But patients receiving mirabegron had less analgesic consumption. No serious adverse events were reported with mirabegron treatment. This systematic review shows that mirabegron is an effective and safe medical expulsive therapy agent in patients with ureteral stones.
The evaluation of acute, sub-acute toxicity and safety of hydro-alcoholic leaf extract of Putranjiva roxburghii in rat
Authors: Chauhan Jayhind Kumar , Ayesha Safia , Rai Sangeeta , Sahu Alakh N , Dubey Pawan K , Tripathi Anima
Published: October 2022

Putranjiva rouxburghii is an herbal plant that has been used to improve female reproductive health in ancient Indian ayurveda based medicinal system. Despite the widespread use, no scientific evidence is available to support its safety. In this study, we evaluated the acute and sub acute toxicity of P. roxburghii hydro-alcoholic leaf extracts in rat animal model. In acute toxicity, healthy rats were given 2000mg/kg body weight of P.roxburghii leaf extract for 14 days. In a sub acute toxicity experiment, healthy rats were divided into four groups and group A was given plane water whereas, group B, C and D was given 100, 200 and 400 mg/kg bodyweight leaf extract for 28 days. At intervals of 7 days, bodyweight, feed consumption, water intake, biochemical, pathological and molecular parameters were evaluated. The dose 2000mg/kg bodyweight used in acute toxicity study showed there were no clinical signs of toxicity. The LD50 of the P.roxburghii extract was anticipated to be above 2000mg/kg. All experimental groups had no significant differences (P<0.05) in body weight changes, feed consumption, or water intake. The biochemical parameters results showed no significant differences between the experimental groups. The organ tissues were examined grossly and histopathological study, there were no significant difference found between untreated and test rats. Our in-vitro study suggest that P.roxburghii leaf extract exerts pro-apoptotic effect on endometrial primary cells which further confirmed by AO/PI staining. It is concluded that hydro-alcoholic extracts of P.roxburghii leaf are potentially safe and may use for the cure of reproductive disorders.
Effects of deep brain stimulation on driving in Parkinson’s disease - a prospective controlled study
Authors: Buhmann Carsten , Fründt Odette , Mainka Tina , Vettorazzi Eik , Baspinar Ela , Schwarz Cindy , Südmeyer Martin , Gerloff Christian , Zangemeister Wolfgang , Pötter-Nerger Monika , Hidding Ute , Hamel Wolfgang , Moll Christian
Published: October 2022

About 50% of patients with Parkinson’s disease (PD) treated with deep brain stimulation (DBS) actively drive a car. In this controlled, three-armed study, non-demented active drivers with PD and DBS were recruited to prospectively examine their driving simulator performance before (Baseline) and 6–12 months after brain surgery (Follow-up). Data was compared to that of clinically matched PD patients, eligible for but without undergoing DBS and to age-matched healthy controls. Clinical Baseline characteristics and driving performance of PD patients with (n = 23) and without DBS (n = 29) did not differ significantly but driving safety in PD was worse compared to controls (n = 33). At Follow-up, driving performance was still comparable between both PD groups. Disease duration was associated with poorer driving performance. This first prospective study on driving safety in PD after DBS implantation indicates that DBS does not influence driving negatively, but also does not improve driving safety as hypothesized based on previous studies.
Modelling the ecological dynamics of mosquito populations with multiple co-circulating Wolbachia strains
Authors: Ogunlade Samson , Adekunle Adeshina , McBryde Emma , Meehan Michael
Published: October 2022

Wolbachia intracellular bacteria successfully reduce the transmissibility of arthropod-borne viruses (arboviruses) when introduced into virus-carrying vectors such as mosquitoes. Despite the progress made by introducing Wolbachia bacteria into the Aedes aegypti wild-type population to control arboviral infections, reports suggest that heat-induced loss-of-Wolbachia infection as a result of climate change may reverse these gains. Novel, supplemental Wolbachia strains that are more resilient to increased temperatures may circumvent these concerns, and could potentially act synergistically with existing variants. In this article, we model the ecological dynamics among three distinct mosquito (sub)populations: a wild-type population free of any Wolbachia infection; an invading population infected with a particular Wolbachia strain; and a second invading population infected with a distinct Wolbachia strain from that of the first invader. We explore how the range of possible characteristics of each Wolbachia strain impacts mosquito prevalence. Further, we analyse the differential system governing the mosquito populations and the Wolbachia infection dynamics by computing the full set of basic and invasive reproduction numbers and use these to establish stability of identified equilibria. Our results show that releasing mosquitoes with two different strains of Wolbachia did not increase their prevalence, compared with a single-strain Wolbachia-infected mosquito introduction and only delayed Wolbachia dominance.
Uncertainty in child custody cases after parental separation: context and decisionmaking process
Authors: Mendes Josimar Antônio de Alcântara , Ormerod Thomas
Published: October 2022

Context factors (e.g., a family’s developmental crisis) can affect the child custody decisionmaking process and the child’s best interests after parental separation. But what are these context factors, and how do they vary across different cultures and legal systems? This paper reports a cross-cultural qualitative study funded by the Brazilian Ministry of Education and was carried under a Naturalistic Decision-making approach. This study addresses factors that impact the decision-making of experienced legal actors in child custody cases. Interviews were conducted with 73 legal actors (judges, prosecutors, lawyers, psychologists and social workers) in Brazil and England. The data gathered were analysed employing a reflexive thematic analysis that generated seven themes addressing how uncertainty is structured by context factors in child custody cases after parental separation. The themes encompass three domains (‘family’, ‘family court’ and ‘legal-psychosocial’) that draw the attention to the sources of uncertainty in child custody cases, especially to the role of contextual players (family and children) in the child custody decision-making process.
Towards securing Wireless insulin pump system using unsupervised deep learning technique
Authors: M Shobana , s Poonkuzhali
Published: October 2022

With the advent of Internet of things (IoT) technology across various fields give arise to occurrence of many smart objects/things. These kind of smart objects involves even in medical area to achieve smart health care monitoring system, wearable devices, and medical implanted devices, in general those kind of systems were called as internet of medical things. Hence the tremendous increase in smart devices among medical domain has both pros and cons. Among many existing problems, security issues sounds to be most addressable problem in the IoT based medical application. These IoMT devices were considered to be resource constrained, so it does not possess enough security framework to fight against all sorts of malicious attack as well as data privacy of patients. The malicious attack in IoMT system can bring huge data loss and life threat to patients. The existing solutions suggested for IoMT security issues are relies on supervised learning, so this work is heavily based on unsupervised learning to improve the efficiency of the designed security model. In this paper, an intrusion detection system has been designed for most significant IoMT device namely Insulin pump system for diabetes treatment using deep learning technique in an unsupervised manner. In this model deep autoencoder has been utilized to classify the unauthorized insulin value from the legitimate insulin value and this model used insulin logs of several patients as its dataset. The performance of the designed model has been evaluated using the quality metrics like accuracy, precision, F1-measure, and recall. Furthermore the resultant model is compared and analyzed against existing methodology as well as traditional machine learning classifiers.
AT 1 inhibition mediated neuroprotection after experimental traumatic brain injury is dependent on neutrophils in male mice
Authors: Timaru-Kast Ralph , Coronel-Castello Shila P. , Krämer Tobias J. , Hugonnet André V. , Schäfer Michael K. E. , Sebastiani Anne , Thal Serge C.
Published: October 2022

Cerebral inflammation with invasion of neutrophils and lymphocytes is a crucial factor in the process of secondary brain damage after traumatic brain injury (TBI). In TBI the intrinsic renin-angiotensin system is an important mediator of cerebral inflammation, as inhibition of the angiotensin II receptor type 1 (AT1) reduces secondary brain damage and the invasion of neutrophil granulocytes into injured cerebral tissue. The present study investigated the role of immune cells in AT1 inhibition-mediated neuroprotection after experimental TBI. In four different cohorts, male mice were studied to examine effects of neutropenia (anti-Ly6G antibody mediated neutrophil depletion; C57BL/6) or lymphopenia (RAG1 deficiency, RAG1-/-) alone, or in combination with candesartan-mediated AT1 inhibition. The present results demonstrate that reduction of neutrophils (neutrophil depletion in wild type mice) and of lymphocytes (RAG1-/-) as well as AT1 inhibition in (control antibody treated) wild type and RAG1-/- mice reduce brain damage and neuroinflammation after TBI compared to control groups, while in neutropenic mice, candesartan had no effect. However, AT1 inhibition was neuroprotective in RAG1-/- mice, but not in neutropenic mice. Therefore, the results indicate that AT1 inhibition mediated neuroprotection may be exerted by anti-inflammatory effects on neutrophils, with a subsequent reduction of neutrophil invasion.
Multiscale simulation and experimental measurements of the elastic response for constructional steel
Authors: Ye Yi-Cong , Zhao Feng-Yuan , Huang Cai-Min , Bai Shu-Xin , Chen Qiang
Published: October 2022

The elastic response of the medium carbon steel to the macroscopic stress is established for revealing the elastic properties at multiscale. Based on the multiscale correlation constitutive equations derived from this constitutive model, the effective elastic constants (EECs) of medium carbon steel are predicted. In addition, the diffraction elastic constants (DECs) of the constituents of the medium carbon steel are also evaluated. And then, the simple in-situ X-ray diffraction experiments was performed for the measurements of DECs and EECs of treated 35CrMo steel during the four-point bending. Compared with the different models and experiments, the results demonstrated that the developed constitutive model is in good agreement with the measured values of the EECs and DECs, and that the connection of the material properties may be revealed by the feasibility and credibility of the constitutive model for simulating the elastic response at multiscale.
An optimal design modeling of non-volatile dynamical reconfigurable FPGA using SOT-MRAM for ultra-low power applications
Authors: Hussain Karrar , Reddy C V Krishna , Kishore K Lal
Published: October 2022

The rapid development of reconfigurable FPGA circuits will facilitate their use and operation at low cost. The design of internal memory of FPGA circuit controls their future development. Spin RAM and Magnetic RAM (MRAM) are the best solutions for FPGA for reducing power and writing time. In terms of memory technology, MRAM is becoming more and more attractive in the industry due to its promising capabilities. The physical design range still causes significant radiation effects such as write error rate, access time, tunnel breakage, and low MRAM power consumption. However, random MRAM writing processes affect their yield, so process variations should be investigated, which increases the complexity of yield analysis. For further enhancement of non-volatile FPGA circuits, we propose an optimal design modeling of non-volatile dynamical reconfigurable FPGA using SOT-MRAM for ultra-low power applications. We first introduce a spin-orbit torque-based MRAM (SOT-MRAM), which significantly reduces exposure to radiation caused by offline reading and writing. We design SOT-MRAM based on a double barrier magnetic tunnel connector (DMTJ) with two reference layers to ensure high power and right length. After that, we develop an optimal SOT-MRAM design using the butterfly induced sunflower optimization (BSFO) algorithm which optimizes the design parameters of writing processes. Finally, the simulation results of proposed design can be compared with the existing state-of-art designs in terms of different simulation metrics.
Lactoferrin-chitosan-TPP nanoparticles: antibacterial action and extension of strawberry shelf-life
Authors: Duarte Larissa G.R. , Ferreira Natália C.A. , Fiocco Ana Clara T. R. , Picone Carolina S.F.
Published: October 2022

The aim of the present study was to produce lactoferrin (L) and chitosan (C) nanoparticles by ionic cross-linking with TPP and thereby increase the antimicrobial activity of biopolymers. The nanoparticles were synthesized in different proportions of biopolymers and TPP and characterized regarding their size, zeta potential, morphology, chemical interactions, structural characteristics and antibacterial activity. They were also applied as coatings on strawberries with the aim of increasing fruit shelf-life. Circular dichroism spectra revealed that the addition of TPP altered the secondary structure of lactoferrin. The nanoparticles 3.5L:5.5C:1TPP and 4.5L:4.5C:1TPP showed higher zeta potential values and lower hydrodynamic diameters (+39.30 mV, 81.87 nm and + 33.07 mV, 97.67 nm, respectively) and intense bacteriostatic action against S. aureus (0.0370 mg/ml and 0.0463 mg/ml, respectively).The minimum inhibitory concentration of these nanoparticles was three times lower than those of pure biopolymers. When applied to strawberries coating, the nanoparticles delayed the ripening and degradation of the fruit. These results confirm that it is possible to intensify the antimicrobial properties of lactoferrin and chitosan through ionic crosslinking with TPP and, thus, expand their use as natural food preservatives.
CGCoCoS-ODB: A Cell Granularity Correctness and Completeness Scheme for Outsourced DataBases
Authors: Cruz Bruno Ramos , Henríquez Lil Maria Xibai Rodríguez , Hernández Saúl Eduardo Pomares , Díaz Jesús García
Published: October 2022

In Outsourced Databases (ODB), Authenticated Query Processing (AQP) schemes offer to database owners the capabilities of verifying correctness, completeness, and/or freshness over query response, assuming untrusted providers. This paper focuses on the first two capabilities that are oriented to ensure integrity in structured data. The AQP solutions work at different level of granularity, mainly at tuple or cell; being the cell granularity the most recent approach that improves the precision of the query response. Another aspect of AQP solutions is the type of query that supports; selection, range, join, among others. Currently, only one solution works at cell level granularity and exclusively provides the correctness capability for selection queries. In this work, we propose a cryptographic scheme for authenticated query processing a cell level granularity that allows the data owner to verify the correctness and completeness of the selection and range query response. The scheme is based on a novel combination of cuckoo filters, bitmaps, and MACs. The cuckoo filter was used to achieve correctness and the bitmaps along with the MACS were used to ensure completeness. The performance of the scheme was evaluated using the Census-Income database. This data set contains weighted census data extracted from the 1994 and 1995 Current Population Surveys conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau. The experiments were carried out in two phases, the first phase consists of preparing the data. The second phase is the query process, where the queries are divided into select and range queries. The proposed scheme has the ability to provide correctness and completeness of a single cell without retrieving all the other attributes of the same row, minimizing network and storage costs. The scheme was designed and tested against attacks such as rows scrambling, columns scrambling, among others.
Generalized Gradient Emphasis Learning for Off-Policy Evaluation and Control with Function Approximation
Authors: Cao Jiaqing , Liu Quan , Wu Lan , Fu Qiming , Zhong Shan
Published: October 2022

Emphatic temporal-difference (TD) learning (Sutton et al. 2016) is a pioneering off-policy reinforcement learning method involving the use of the followon trace. The recently proposed Gradient Emphasis Learning (GEM, Zhang et al. 2020) algorithm is used to fix the problems of unbounded variance and large emphasis approximation error introduced by the followon trace from the perspective of stochastic approximation. In this paper, we rethink GEM and introduce a novel generalized GEM(β) algorithm to learn the true emphasis. The key to the construction of the generalized GEM(β) algorithm is introducing a tunable hyper-parameter β that is not necessarily the same as the discount factor γ to the GEM operator. We then apply the emphasis estimated by the proposed GEM(β) algorithm to the value estimation gradient and the policy gradient, respectively, yielding the corresponding emphatic TD variant for off-policy evaluation and actor-critic algorithm for off-policy control. Finally, we demonstrate empirically the advantage of the proposed algorithms across a range of problems, for both off-policy evaluation and off-policy control, and for both linear and nonlinear function approximation.
Extracting Entities and Relations in Analyst Stock Ratings News
Authors: Krstev Ivan , Mishkovski Igor , Mirchev Miroslav , Golubova Blagica , Gramatikov Sasho
Published: October 2022

Massive volumes of finance-related data are created on the Internet daily,whether on question-answering forums, news articles, or stocks analysis sites. This data can be critical in the decision-making process fortargeting investments in the stock market. Our research paper aimsto extract information from such sources in order to utilize the volumes of data, which is impossible to process manually. In particular,analysts’ ratings on the stocks of well-known companies are considereddata of interest. Two subdomains of Information Extraction will be performed on the analysts’ ratings, Named Entity Recognition and RelationExtraction. The former is a technique for extracting entities from araw text, giving us insights into phrases that have a special meaning inthe domain of interest. However, apart from the actual positions andlabels of those phrases, it lacks the ability to explain the mutual relations between them, bringing up the necessity of the latter model, whichexplains the semantic relationships between entities and enriches theamount of information we can extract when stacked on top of the NamedEntity Recognition model. This study is based on the employment of different models for word embedding and different Deep Learning classification architectures for extracting the entities and predicting relationsbetween them. Furthermore, the multilingual abilities of a joint pipelineare being explored by combining English and German corpora. For bothsubtasks, we record state-of-the-art performances of 97.69% F1 score fornamed entity recognition and 89.70% F1 score for relation extraction.
Potential additional effects of iron chelators on antimicrobial-impregnated central venous catheters
Authors: Itoh Kazuhiro , Tsutani Hiroshi , Mitsuke Yasuhiko , Iwasaki Hiromichi
Published: October 2022

Although central venous catheters (CVCs) play an important role in medical practice, their placement as foreign objects in the human body increases the risk of infection. Microbial colony and biofilm formation are likely to occur on CVCs. Infections caused by CVCs are referred to as catheter-related infections (CRIs), and can lead to longer hospital stays, increased medical costs, and in severe cases, bacteremia and death. The use of antimicrobial-impregnated catheters is recommended as a method to control CRIs. The efficacy of antimicrobial-impregnated catheters has been studied in basic experimental and clinical trials, but further improvements are still being sought, leading to studies on various combinations of iron chelators and antimicrobial agents to limit microbial and biofilm activity. Here, we hypothesize that a new type of CVC with an iron chelator in addition to antimicrobial agents might further suppress the occurrence of CRIs. This paper discusses the antimicrobial and anti-biofilm activities of iron chelators and proposes the possibility of creating a new type of CVC.
Computing a Minimum Subset Feedback Vertex Set on Chordal Graphs Parameterized by Leafage
Authors: Papadopoulos Charis , Tzimas Spyridon
Published: October 2022

Chordal graphs are characterized as the intersection graphs of subtrees in a tree and such a representation is known as the tree model. Restricting the characterization results in well-known subclasses of chordal graphs such as interval graphs or split graphs. A typical example that behaves computationally different in subclasses of chordal graph is the Subset Feedback Vertex Set (SFVS) problem: given a vertex-weighted graph G = (V,E) and a set S ⊆ V , we seek for a vertex set of minimum weight that intersects all cycles containing a vertex of S. SFVS is known to be polynomial-time solvable on interval graphs, whereas SFVS remains NP-complete on split graphs and, consequently, on chordal graphs. Towards a better understanding of the complexity of SFVS on subclasses of chordal graphs, we exploit structural properties of a tree model in order to cope with the hardness of SFVS. Here we consider variants of the leafage that measures the minimum number of leaves in a tree model. We show that SFVS can be solved in polynomial time for every chordal graph with bounded leafage. In particular, given a chordal graph on n vertices with leafage ℓ, we provide an algorithm for SFVS with running time nO(ℓ), thus improving upon nO(ℓ2), the running time of the previously known algorithm obtained for graphs with bounded mim-width. We complement our result by showing that SFVS is W[1]-hard parameterized by ℓ. Pushing further our positive result, it is natural to consider a slight generalization of leafage, the vertex leafage, which measures the minimum upper bound on the number of leaves of every subtree in a tree model. However, we show that it is unlikely to obtain a similar result, as we prove that SFVS remains NP-complete on undirected path graphs, i.e., chordal graphs having vertex leafage at most two. Lastly, we provide a polynomial-time algorithm for SFVS on rooted path graphs, a proper subclass of undirected path graphs and graphs of mim-width one, which is faster than the previously known algorithm obtained for graphs with bounded mim-width.
Perfect Matchings with Crossings
Authors: Aichholzer Oswin , Fabila-Monroy Ruy , Kindermann Philipp , Parada Irene , Paul Rosna , Perz Daniel , Schnider Patrick , Vogtenhuber Birgit
Published: October 2022

Note: Please see pdf for full abstract with equations.
For sets of $n=2m$ points in general position in the plane we consider straight-line drawings of perfect matchings on them. It is well known that such sets admit at least $C_m$ different plane perfect matchings, where $C_m$ is the $m$-th Catalan number. Generalizing this result we are interested in the number of drawings of perfect matchings which have $k$ crossings. We show the following results. (1)~For every $k\leq \frac{1}{64}n^2-O(n \sqrt{n})$, any set with an even number of $n$ points, $n$ sufficiently large, admits a perfect matching with exactly $k$ crossings. (2)~There exist sets of $n$ points ($n$ even) where every perfect matching has fewer than $\frac{5}{72}n^2$ crossings. (3)~The number of perfect matchings with at most $k$ crossings is superexponential in $n$ if $k$ is superlinear in $n$. (4)~Point sets in convex position minimize the number of perfect matchings with at most $k$ crossings for $k=0,1,2$, and maximize the number of perfect matchings with $\binom{n/2}{2}$ crossings and with ${\binom{n/2}{2}}\!-\!1$ crossings.
Evaluation of Upper Gastrointestinal Bleeding and Its Relationship with Death Incidence
Authors: Alabedeen Aseel Yahia Zain , Alzaal Raghad , Ali Ayman
Published: October 2022

Background:
Upper gastrointestinal bleeding (UGIB) is a life-threatening medical emergency characterized by bleeding from the esophagus, stomach, or duodenum. This study aims to analyze the factors associated with the occurrence of death in patients.
Methods:
This retrospective study was conducted in the period between 2021–2022, the hospital’s consent was obtained to view patients’ data, samples were collected from patient records in the Gastrointestinal Division of the hospital. The study included 199 patients admitted to the Gastrointestinal Division who were diagnosed with gastrointestinal bleeding at Al-Mujtahid Hospital in Damascus, the exclusion criteria included both archival errors, and cases with incomplete data that cannot be studied.
Results:
Out of the 199 patients, 68.8% were male and 31.2% were female. The average age of patients was 57.4 years, melena was the most prominent clinical manifestation of bleeding, with 68.2% of patients, followed by Coffee ground vomiting by 34.2%, 30.2% with a history of unexplained hypotension, and 26.1% with a history of haematemesis. The majority used the Rockall warning system with a percentage of 98.5%. The majority had concomitant heart disease 31.2%. Considering the drugs used, aspirin, corticosteroids, and clopidogrel were the top results, 39.9% of patients had a history of heart, 96.5% of patients were conscious, and endoscopy revealed active bleeding in 34.2%. 69.3% had gastric ulcers, 25.1% had esophageal varices, and the majority had a Forrest Ia rating of 32.2% and a grade III of 30.2%. 37.2% needed endoscopic intervention, 19.1% had banding, 11.6% had thermal coagulation, and 10.1% had laparotomy. Death occurred in 6.5% of patients, while 83.4% needed a surgery. Our results found a statistically significant relationship between the incidence of death and each of the advanced age, cardiac antecedents, haematemesis, Coffee ground vomiting, and esophageal varices.
Conclusion:
Our findings reveal the association of various factors with the incidence of death in cases of UGIB reviewed at Damascus Hospital.These results are significant but may not be generalizable, so we recommend conducting more comprehensive studies.
An Approach for Disease Prediction and Classification using Novel Weighting Method and Multi-channel Shared Functional Behaviour
Authors: D. Saidulu , R. Sasikala
Published: October 2022

The authors have requested that this preprint be removed from Research Square.
Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics for modelling cold-water coral habitats in changing oceans
Authors: Georgoulas Konstantinos , Hennige Sebastian , Lee Yeaw Chu
Published: October 2022

The importance of the growth, proliferation and longevity of reef-forming cold-water corals is paramount as they support various complex bio-diverse habitats and provide many essential ecosystem services. These cold-water coral reefs consist of layers of living coral tissue that grow above large masses of coral skeleton. Here, the Goldilocks Principle is used to promote growth in ‘just right’ conditions and model how cold-water corals engineer their habitat to survive and prosper. A computational fluid dynamics model is created based on the Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics method, a mesh-free Lagrangian numerical method. The SPH solver is written in the C++ programming language and parallelised with OpenMP to improve its efficiency and reduce the execution times. The solver is validated against analytical and numerical solutions.
Natural Convection Heat Transfer From an Isothermal Plate
Authors: Jaffer Aubrey
Published: October 2022

Currently, natural convection heat transfer from horizontal,
upward-facing plates is known only within expected measurement
uncertainties at the Rayleigh numbers (Ra) which have been measured.
This investigation derives from theory a comprehensive formula which
predicts natural convection heat transfer from unobstructed,
upward-facing, isothermal plates. The union of four peer-reviewed
data-sets spanning 1 < Ra < 1012 has 5.4% root-mean-squared relative
error (RMSRE) versus this new heat transfer formula. This novel
theory is based on the thermodynamic constraints on heat-engine
efficiency. It derives a formula nearly identical to Churchill and
Chu (1975) for vertical plates at 1 < Ra < 1012 . The formula it
derives for downward-facing plates has 3.8% RMSRE on four
peer-reviewed data-sets spanning 106 < Ra < 1012 ; this is an
improvement compared with 4.6% RMSRE of the Schulenberg (1985) formula
on the same data. This investigation introduces harmonic mean as the
characteristic-length metric for vertical and downward-facing plates,
extending these rectangular plate formulas to other convex shapes. It
achieves 3.8% RMSRE on vertical disk convection measurements from
Hassani and Hollands (1987) and 3.2% from Kobus and Wedekind (1995).
Building on the work of Fujii and Imura (1972) and Raithby and
Hollands (1998), the three orthogonal plate formulas are combined to
calculate the heat transfer at any plate inclination, achieving 4.7%
RMSRE on the inclined plate measurements from Fujii and Imura.
Trends in the incidence and prevalence of dysphagia requiring medical attention among adults in South Korea, 2006–2016: A nationwide population study
Authors: Kwon SuYeon , Cha Seungwoo , Kim Junsik , Han Kyungdo , Paik Nam-Jong , Kim Won-Seok
Published: October 2022

Background
The prevalence of dysphagia is increasing, resulting in socioeconomic burden, but previous reports have only been based on a specific population. Therefore, we aimed to investigate the nationwide incidence and prevalence of dysphagia requiring medical attention to provide adequate information for healthcare planning and resource allocation.
Methods
In this nationwide retrospective cohort study, the data of adults aged ≥ 20 years recorded from 2006 to 2016 were sourced from the Korean National Health Insurance Service database. Medical claim codes based on ICD-10-CM were used to define dysphagia and possible causes. The annual incidence and prevalence of dysphagia were calculated. Cox regression was used to estimate dysphagia risk in people with possible dysphagia etiology. Survival analysis was performed to estimate the mortality and hazard ratio of dysphagia.
Results
The crude annual incidence of dysphagia increased continuously from 7.14 in 2006 to 15.64 in 2016. The crude annual prevalence of dysphagia in 2006 was 0.09% and increased annually to 0.25% in 2016. Stroke (odds ratio [OR]: 7.86, 95% confidence interval [CI]: 5.76–6.68), neurodegenerative disease (OR: 6.20, 95% CI: 5.76–6.68), cancer (OR: 5.59, 95% CI: 5.17–6.06), and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (OR: 2.94, 95% CI: 2.71–3.18) were associated with a high risk of dysphagia. The mortality in the dysphagia group was 3.12 times higher than that in the non-dysphagia group (hazard ratio: 3.12, 95% CI: 3.03–3.23).
Conclusions
The incidence and prevalence of dysphagia requiring medical attention are increasing annually. The increasing trend was conspicuous in the elderly group older than 60 years. The presence of stroke, neurodegenerative disease, cancer, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease is associated with a high risk of dysphagia. Therefore, adequate screening, diagnosis, and management of dysphagia in the older population must be emphasized in geriatric healthcare.
Metal-Wired Plastic Beads as A Urethral Foreign Body in A Male with Erectile Dysfunction: A Case Report
Authors: Harsanto Andrian , Satjakoesoemah Adistra Imam , Sumardi Rochani
Published: October 2022

Introduction : Self-insertion of urethral foreign bodies are rare and unique urological emergencies. These cases are unique in terms of the object inserted as well as the reasons behind the insertion. Erectile dysfunction, among other factors, might present as an underlying reason for these cases. We present a case of plastic beads as a urethral foreign body in a male with erectile dysfunction. Case presentation : 46-year-old male came to the emergency department with signs and symptoms of urosepsis after inserting 4 necklace beads into his urethra during sexual intercourse in order to overcome his erectile dysfunction. The foreign body was successfully retrieved by urethroscopy after managing the urosepsis. Due to their rarity, there is still no guideline on the management of these cases. Conclusion : Adequate imaging of the foreign object, proper planning of extraction methods, simultaneous diagnosis and management of existing complications, follow ups, as well as addressing the underlying reasons for foreign object insertion are the keys to successfully managing these rare and challenging cases.
Spatial modelling and mapping of Gully Erosion Susceptibility using Neural Network Methods
Authors: Saha Asish , Pal Subodh Chandra , Arabameri Alireza , Chowdhuri Indrajit , Rezaie Fatemeh , Chakrabortty Rabin , Roy Paramita
Published: October 2022

It plays a key role in redistributing degraded soils on a track. It is very important therefore to discuss the pattern of spatial occurrences of this phenomenon. Different methods have been used to map the susceptibility of gully erosion, most of which are data mining methods, but their calibration and measurement procedures need to be thoroughly discussed. The current research introduces a set of individual data mining methods of artificial neural networks (ANNs) such as multilayer perceptron (MLP), radial basic function (RBF), Backpropagation neural network (BPNN), ELMAN Neural Network (ELMNN) and fully connected spare autoencoder (FC-SAE) are used in order to map gully erosion susceptibility (GES) in Garhbeta-I C.D. Block of Paschim Medinipur district in West Bengal, India. A gully inventory map has been used for this purpose along with 20 gully conditioning variables. A randomly distributed sample of 70:30 per cent was used to assess the efficiency and predictive strength of the methods. Moreover, the random forest (RF) model was used to test the importance of gully erosion conditioning factors (GECFs) because of the greater capacities and accuracy in contrast with other data mining techniques. The result from the success of the model has been validated by the receiver operating characteristics-area under curve (ROC-AUC). The findings show that the MLP is the robustness model with the AUC value of 0.95 compared to the remaining models. The findings of this analysis may provide an outline for more biophysical planning of gullies dispersed throughout the study field.