bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Estrogen- and Progesterone (P4)-Mediated Epigenetic Modifications of Endometrial Stromal Cells (EnSCs) and/or Mesenchymal Stem/Stromal Cells (MSCs) in the Etiopathogenesis of Endometriosis
Authors: Szukiewicz Dariusz , Stangret Aleksandra , Ruiz-Ruiz Carmen , Olivares Enrique G. , Soriţău Olga , Suşman Sergiu , Szewczyk Grzegorz 
Published: January 2021

AbstractEndometriosis is a common chronic inflammatory condition in which endometrial tissue appears outside the uterine cavity. Because ectopic endometriosis cells express both estrogen and progesterone (P4) receptors, they grow and undergo cyclic proliferation and breakdown similar to the endometrium. This debilitating gynecological disease affects up to 15% of reproductive aged women. Despite many years of research, the etiopathogenesis of endometrial lesions remains unclear. Retrograde transport of the viable menstrual endometrial cells with retained ability for attachment within the pelvic cavity, proliferation, differentiation and subsequent invasion into the surrounding tissue constitutes the rationale for widely accepted implantation theory. Accordingly, the most abundant cells in the endometrium are endometrial stromal cells (EnSCs). These cells constitute a particular population with clonogenic activity that resembles properties of mesenchymal stem/stromal cells (MSCs). Thus, a significant role of stem cell-based dysfunction in formation of the initial endometrial lesions is suspected. There is increasing evidence that the role of epigenetic mechanisms and processes in endometriosis have been underestimated. The importance of excess estrogen exposure and P4 resistance in epigenetic homeostasis failure in the endometrial/endometriotic tissue are crucial. Epigenetic alterations regarding transcription factors of estrogen and P4 signaling pathways in MSCs are robust in endometriotic tissue. Thus, perspectives for the future may include MSCs and EnSCs as the targets of epigenetic therapies in the prevention and treatment of endometriosis. Here, we reviewed the current known changes in the epigenetic background of EnSCs and MSCs due to estrogen/P4 imbalances in the context of etiopathogenesis of endometriosis.
Agglomeration economies, congestion diseconomies, and fertility dynamics in a two-region economy
Authors: Muroishi Madoka , Yakita Akira 
Published: January 2021

AbstractUsing a small, open, two-region economy model populated by two-period-lived overlapping generations, we analyze long-term agglomeration economy and congestion diseconomy effects of young worker concentration on migration and the overall fertility rate. When the migration-stability condition is satisfied, the distribution of young workers between regions is obtainable in each period for a predetermined population size. Results show that migration stability does not guarantee dynamic stability of the economy. The stationary population size stability depends on the model parameters and the initial population size. On a stable trajectory converging to the stationary equilibrium, the overall fertility rate might change non-monotonically with the population size of the economy because of interregional migration. In each period, interregional migration mitigates regional population changes caused by fertility differences on the stable path. Results show that the inter-regional migration-stability condition does not guarantee stability of the population dynamics of the economy.
Cardiovascular event risk estimated after coronary revascularization and optimal medical therapy: J-ACCESS4 prognostic study
Authors: Sakatani Tomohiko , Nakajima Kenichi , Fujita Hiroshi , Nishimura Tsunehiko 
Published: January 2021

Abstract
Background
An assessment of cardiac events and survival using quantitative gated myocardial single-photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) (J-ACCESS) associated several risk factors with cardiac events in Japan. The clinical course after revascularization and/or optimal medical therapy (OMT) was followed in patients with coronary artery disease (CAD) at moderate-to-high risk estimated by software incorporating the J-ACCESS risk model. The present study aimed to determine the relevance of changes in estimated risk to outcomes of these therapies.

Methods
This study included 494 patients with possible or definite CAD who underwent initial pharmacological stress 99mTc-tetrofosmin myocardial perfusion SPECT (MPS) before and eight months after therapy. Major cardiac event risk during 3 years of follow-up was calculated using an equation based on that in the J-ACCESS study. Patients with ≥ 10% cardiac event risk estimated at the first MPS (n = 31) were analyzed and followed up for at least 1 year.

Results
Estimated risk was reduced by ≥ 5% in 14 patients (45%) after therapy. During a follow-up period of 22.1 ± 6.7 months, one patient without such reduction had a major cardiac event. Mean %summed stress scores significantly decreased from baseline to follow-up in patients with and without risk reduction. Left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF [%]) at rest was significantly increased at the second, compared with the first MPS between patients with, than without risk reduction (57 ± 17 vs. 45 ± 16%, p = 0.001 and 50 ± 11 vs. 49 ± 9%, p = 0.953, respectively).

Conclusions
A reduction in cardiac ischemia and an increase in LVEF by revascularization and/or OMT were necessary to avoid cardiac events among patients with moderate-to-high estimated risk, and changes in event risk were quantifiable.
The Exploration of the Uncanny Valley from the Viewpoint of the Robot’s Nonverbal Behaviour
Authors: Thepsoonthorn Chidchanok , Ogawa Ken-ichiro , Miyake Yoshihiro 
Published: January 2021

AbstractMany studies have been conducted to find approaches to overcome the Uncanny Valley. However, the focus on the influence of the robot’s appearance leaves a big missing part: the influence of the robot’s nonverbal behaviour. This impedes the complete exploration of the Uncanny Valley. In this study, we explored the Uncanny Valley from the viewpoint of the robot’s nonverbal behaviour in regard to the Uncanny Valley hypothesis. We observed a relationship between the participants’ ratings on human-likeness of the robot’s nonverbal behavior and affinity toward the robot’s nonverbal behavior, and define the point where the affinity toward the robot’s nonverbal behavior significantly drops down as the Uncanny Valley. In this study, an experiment of human–robot interaction was conducted. The participants were asked to interact with a robot with different nonverbal behaviours, ranging from 0 (no nonverbal behavior, speaking only) to 3 (gaze, head nodding, and gestures) combinations and to rate the perceived human-likeness and affinity toward the robot’s nonverbal behavior by using a questionnaire. Additionally, the participants’ fixation duration was measured during the experiment. The result showed a biphasic relationship between human-likeness and affinity rating results. A curve resembling the Uncanny Valley is found. The result was also supported by participants’ fixation duration. It showed that the participants had the longest fixation at the robot when the robot expressed the nonverbal behaviours that fall into the Uncanny Valley. This exploratory study provides evidence suggesting the existence of the Uncanny Valley from the viewpoint of the robot’s nonverbal behaviour.
The Rise of the Roboid
Authors: Fortunati Leopoldina , Sorrentino Alessandra , Fiorini Laura , Cavallo Filippo 
Published: January 2021

AbstractThe aim of this paper is to analyze a new phenomenon that is emerging in the field of social robotics, which we name as “roboid”. The roboid is a robot that is still at the prototype stage but claims to be fully functioning. We argue that the roboid has been created to handle a new phase between the prototyping and the commercialization of robots. In this intermediate phase, a wide-spread promotional campaign is organized by robot producers, with the purpose of understanding the desires, needs, and suggestions of potential customers. We present the first case of a a highly human-like roboid named Sophia. We carried out the visual analysis of the content and the content-agnostic factors of a selection of 15 videos uploaded on YouTube on the social robot Sophia and a qualitative analysis of the textual component of these videos to investigate a selected part of the promotional campaign on Sophia. Furthermore, on the 23,810 comments that users have posted on these videos, we applied quantitative analysis to explore the observers’ opinions about Sophia. Results highlight that: (1) a powerful but potentially ridiculous narrative has been used to build the rhetoric of Sophia; (2) the comments on the videos are too poor to enable a co-construction of this social robot with the audiences (implicit intention of Hanson Robotics); (3) the introduction of the roboid might be a very good solution to reduce the uncertainties that may occur when a new robot moves directly from the laboratory to the market.
Susceptibility and residual effect of indoxacarb formulations on major soybean lepidopteran pests
Authors: da Silva Oliveira Marina Gomes , Serikawa Rosana Harumi , da Silva Fábio Maximiano Andrade , Fernandes Odair Aparecido 
Published: January 2021

AbstractChysodeixis includens and Helicoverpa armigera can negatively impact soybean yield due to defoliation and direct injury on the pods, respectively. Insecticides, such as indoxacarb, are still an important controlling tool to manage these insects. To support Integrated Pest Management (IPM) and Insect Resistance Management (IRM) as well as to reduce product decantation during storage and nozzle clogging in field application, a new indoxacarb formulation (emulsifiable concentrate - EC) was developed to replace the suspension concentrate formulation (SC). The objective of this study was to evaluate the susceptibility and compare the residual effects of two indoxacarb formulations on C. includens and H. armigera on soybean. A dose-response curve and the residual effect from in-field application were obtained using a laboratory strain of both insect pests. Soybean leaflets were collected and dipped into aqueous indoxacarb solutions. The evaluations were performed 96 h after the infestation to calculate the insect mortality percentage and foliar damage. Also, plants were sprayed in the field and leaflets from mid and upper regions of the plants were collected and used to feed third-instar larvae of both species. Results demonstrated that C. includens and H. armigera are similary sensitive to indoxacarb. The residual activity was up to 1 h after application for H. armigera and up to 3 days for C. includens. No difference was observed on this activity between mid and upper regions of the plant. Overall, the enhanced EC formulation is as effective as the SC formulation for the control of both species on soybean.
Influence of temperature-viscosity behaviors of Karamay oil sand bitumen on the geomechanics in the SAGD process
Authors: Gao Yanfang , Chen Mian 
Published: January 2021

AbstractViscosity-temperature behavior is important for the thermal recovery of bitumen: firstly, it is a criterion for evaluating the evolution of mobility with temperature, which affects oil production; and secondly, it determines the role of bitumen in the geomechanics in oil sand reservoir. To quantitatively evaluate the effect of temperature on dynamic viscosity, some experimental and modeling investigations were conducted. The viscosity of Karamay oil sand bitumen over a temperature range of 20 ~ 350 °C was measured, and the viscosity-temperature behavior was simulated by a modified three-parameter model using the least square method. It was found that the viscosity of Karamay bitumen drops sharply with the temperature increase. The effect of bitumen viscosity on the geomechanics in the SAGD process was discussed in terms of reservoir deformation, fluid flow, and heat transfer behaviors. The reservoir deformation, fluid flow, and heat transfer behaviors at varying bitumen viscosity show significant differences in the drained, partially drained, and undrained geomechanical zones. The structure’s bulk modulus, effective stress, and volumetric strain in the drained zone are lower than those in the undrained zone; while the oil mobility and Peclet number show the opposite tendency. The changes in the structure’s bulk modulus, effective stress, volumetric strain, oil mobility, and Peclet number due to the phase change of bitumen increase with the increase of oil saturation. This study can provide the field engineers with guidance for the design of a proper oil recovery scheme before its implementation, and with a useful relation for the coupled thermal-flow-structure analyses.
Sanctified Sexual Relationships in Marriage: Reflections from Religious Wives and Husbands
Authors: Leavitt Chelom E. , Allsop David B. , Clarke Rebecca W. , Marks Loren D. , Dollahite David C. 
Published: January 2021

Background Religion and sex are both prominent elements of most people's lives. Most adults view both religion and sex as quite important in their lives. However, some research indicates that religion may negatively impact individuals’ perspectives on sex. Purpose We examined highly religious individuals’ spontaneous comments of the role of religion and sex in their lives and looked for themes in how sex and religion may be associated. Methods We conducted in-depth, qualitative interviews using a racially and ethnically diverse sample consisting of Muslim, Christian, and Jewish families comprised of 198 married heterosexual couples based on conjoint interviews with the husbands and wives. Couples were in long-term marriages (average 20 years) were interviewed together when most (93%) were in their 40s and 50s in 2001–2010. The topic of the nexus of religion and sexual relationships was not on the interview questionnaire but still surfaced in many of the interviews. Results We analyzed participants’ comments related to sex and found six themes that revealed these religious families’ perspectives on the purpose of sex, including: 1. The sanctity of sex; 2. The expression of sex is limited to marriage; 3. Sex strengthens the marriage; 4. Sex is for procreation; 5. Sex is just one component of a strong marriage; and 6. Religious beliefs can be damaging. Implications and applications are discussed. Conclusions and Implications This study also illustrates that how individuals, marriages, and families interpret and apply the teachings of their respective religion may have more to do with the influence of religion than their particular denomination or their religious attendance. Sexuality was viewed as a covenant, a higher purpose, a form of worship, or even a way to make God happy, but only within the bonds of marriage. Couples identified their sexual relationship with Godly characteristics and this provided a sense of power and sanctification. These findings may provide needed insight to religious couples about how and why sex and religion blend or create conflict.
The Role of Teachers' Social Networks in ICT-Based Instruction
Authors: Kim Jinhee , Pak Sejin , Cho Young Hoan 
Published: January 2021

AbstractTo scale up pedagogical innovation using information and communications technology (ICT), educators have shifted the focus of professional development from primarily an individualist endeavor to a collective approach including teachers' social networks (SNs). SNs have been found to be a major contributor to professional development and support, which in turn promote teachers' self-efficacy and improve their teaching practices. However, the effects of SNs in pedagogical innovation may vary depending on the structure of SNs and the quality of the interaction in a network. It is necessary to reconsider the assumption that the more networked teachers become, the better they teach students. This study aims to explore both the supportive and obstructive roles of teachers' SNs in scaling up ICT-based instruction through in-depth interviews with 14 primary school teachers (7 active and 7 passive ICT using teachers) in South Korea. This study found that some SNs played a positive role in supporting ICT-based instruction and professional development, whereas some imposed constraints on using ICT for teaching and learning. Teachers who actively conducted ICT-based instruction were likely to have appropriate countermeasures to obstructive SNs. This study suggests that systematic supports are necessary to help teachers expand their supportive SNs in and out of schools and to develop professional competencies to overcome the negative impacts of obstructive SNs.
Being useful among persons aged over 65: social representations from a cross-sectional European study
Authors: de Boissieu Paul , Guerin Serge , Suissa Véronique , Ecarnot Fiona , Letty Aude , Sanchez Stéphane 
Published: January 2021

Abstract
Background
There is a compelling need to prepare our societies and healthcare systems to deal with the oncoming wave of population ageing. The majority of older persons maintain a desire to be valued and useful members of society and of their social networks.

Aims
We sought to investigate the perception of usefulness among persons aged 65 years and over in four European countries.

Methods
We performed a cross-sectional survey with a representative sample of individuals aged 65 years or older from the population of retired persons (including recently retired persons and oldest-old individuals) from 4 European countries selected using quota sampling. In February 2016, an internet questionnaire was sent to all selected individuals. The characteristics used for the quota sampling method were sex, age, socio-professional category, region, city size, number of persons in household, autonomy, marital status, place of residence, income and educational status. The questionnaire contained 57 questions. Sociodemographic characteristics were recorded. Responses were analysed with principal components analysis (PCA).

Results
A total of 4025 persons participated; 51% were males, and 70% were aged 65–75 years. PCA identified six classes of individuals, of which two classes (Classes 2 and 3) were characterized by more socially isolated individuals with little or no sense of usefulness, low self-esteem and a poor sense of well-being. These two classes accounted for almost 20% of the population. Younger and more autonomous classes reported a more salient sense of usefulness.

Conclusions
The loss of the sense of usefulness is associated with dissatisfaction with life and a loss of pleasure, and persons with profiles corresponding to Classes 2 and 3 should, therefore, be targeted for interventions aimed at restoring social links.
Secure-user sign-in authentication for IoT-based eHealth systems
Authors: Deebak B. D. , Al-Turjman Fadi 
Published: January 2021

AbstractSustainable Computing has advanced the technological evolution of the Internet and information-based communication technology. It is nowadays emerging in the form of the Cloud of Medical Things (CoMT) to develop smart healthcare systems. The academic community has lately made great strides for the development of security for the CoMT based application systems, such as e-healthcare systems, industrial automation systems, military surveillance systems, and so on. To the architecture of CoMT based Smart Environment, Chebyshev Chaotic-Map based single-user sign-in (S-USI) is found as a significant security-control mechanism. To ensure the fidelity, the S-USI assigns a unary-token to the legal users to access the various services, provided by a service provider over an IP-enabled distributed networks. Numerous authentication mechanisms have been presented for the cloud-based distributed networks. However, most of the schemes are still persuasible to security threats, such as user-anonymity, privileged-insider, mutual authentication, and replay type of attacks. This paper applies a sensor/sensor-tag based smart healthcare environment that uses S-USI to provide security and privacy. To strengthen the authentication process, a robust secure based S-USI mechanism and a well-formed coexistence protocol proof for pervasive services in the cloud are proposed. Using the formal security analysis, the prominence of the proposed strategies is proven to show the security efficiency of proposed S-USI. From the formal verification, the comparison results demonstrate that the proposed S-USI consumes less computation overhead; and thus it can be more suitable for the telecare medical information systems.
Prioritization of public services for digitalization using fuzzy Z-AHP and fuzzy Z-WASPAS
Authors: Sergi Duygu , Ucal Sari Irem 
Published: January 2021

AbstractIn this paper, public services are analyzed for implementations of Industry 4.0 tools to satisfy citizen expectations. To be able to prioritize public services for digitalization, fuzzy Z-AHP and fuzzy Z-WASPAS are used in the analysis. The decision criteria are determined as reduced cost, fast response, ease of accessibility, reduced service times, increase in the available information and increased quality. After obtaining criteria weights using fuzzy Z-AHP, health care services, waste disposal department, public transportation, information services, social care services, and citizen complaints resolution centers are compared using fuzzy Z-WASPAS that is proposed for the first time in this paper. Results show that health care services have dominant importance for the digitalization among public services.
Creating proactive behavior for the risk assessment by considering expert evaluation: a case of textile manufacturing plant
Authors: Karasan Ali , Erdogan Melike 
Published: January 2021

AbstractApplying risk assessment approaches to improve quality in enterprises is of great importance especially for sectors that are labor-intensive and thus frequently encountered failures. One of the methods frequently used to take precautions against failures caused by high variability in this type of sector is failure mode and effects analysis (FMEA). In this study, a hybrid FMEA approach is proposed so as to take measures against failures in the textile sector where there are high-quality differences due to its structure and failures frequently occurred. Since the different combinations of risk parameters’ scores may produce the same risk degree based on the function of the FMEA’s basis, misleading results for the risk analysis in the practical risk management can be occurred. Moreover, the risk priority number (RPN) function has a limitation in the weight determining process, since it assigns the equal weight for each risk parameter in the classical FMEA. To overcome these shortcomings in the RPN calculation for the risks in the FMEA approach, a multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) approach is applied under the framework of fuzzy logic. Through that, in this study, we aimed to prove an expert system based on the rules that specifically focusing on the risk sources of the woven fabric industry. To create such a rule-based system, inputs are generated using fuzzy AHP and modified fuzzy TOPSIS. A case study is carried out with the method proposed in a textile mill, and it is determined which risks arising from failures are higher. For the validation of the results, a comparative analysis is conducted. Moreover, for the robustness of the decisions, one-at-a-time sensitivity analysis with respect to different scenarios are applied. As a result of the analyses, it is shown that our proposed model can be used as an efficient proactive risk calculator for the managers or researchers to make useful inferences, judgments, and decisions of the production processes for eliminating the shortcomings of the traditional FMEA.