bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Single Dose or Divided Dose of Polyethylene Glycol in Treatment of Pediatric Functional Constipation: A Randomized Clinical Trial
Authors: Safarpour Heidar , Imanieh Mohammad Hadi , honar naser , hekmati sajad , Asmarian Naeimehossadat 
Published: October 2021

Abstract
BackgroundThis study aimed to compare different regimens of Polyethylene Glycol (PEG, single dose vs. divided dose) in the treatment of functional constipation among children aged 4-15 years.Materials and MethodsThis double-blind randomized clinical trial was conducted on the children (4-15 years old) with functional constipation who were visited in an outpatient pediatric clinic affiliated to Shiraz University of Medical Sciences between February and July 2021. Among the120 eligible patients, 80 ones who met the inclusion criteria were recruited. The patients were divided into two parallel groups; the children who received single-dose PEG (group A) and those who received PEG in divided doses (group B). The study was performed during 12 weeks and follow-up visits were scheduled at 1, 3, 6, and 12 weeks after enrollment. The outcomes were measured using the Bristol Stool Form Scale (BSFS).ResultsThe study was performed on 78 cases including 45 boys (57.7%) and 33 girls (42.3%) with the mean age of 5.52±1.79 years. After 12 weeks, a significant difference was observed between groups A and B regarding the mean of BSFS (4.94±0.52 vs. 4.50±0.88, p=0.008). However, no significant difference was observed between the two groups regarding the number of defecation times during the study. The detected complications included mild abdominal pain in eight children in group A (5.3%), fecal incontinency in six children in group B (3.8%), and painful defecation in six children in group B (3.8%).ConclusionThis study confirmed that the administration of the single dose (0.4 g/kg) of PEG early in the morning was more effective, well tolerated, and accompanied by fewer complications compared to the divided dose.
Effects of anthropic activity dynamics on mangrove ecosystems’ degradation in Caracol County – Haiti
Authors: Morancy Johnson , Cunha Helenilza Ferreira Albuquerque , Cunha Alan Cavalcanti da 
Published: October 2021

Abstract
Anthropization process and climatic changes, mainly deforestation and sea level rise, are factors significantly contributing to the most evident loss of mangrove ecosystems. The aim of our study is to analyze variables related to the effects of the dynamics of human activities closely associated with these ecosystems’ degradation. The Geographic Information System tool allowed identifying and comparing soil use and occupation variations based on information provided by 140 randomly chosen participants in Caracol County - Haiti. Interviews were carried out in loco between March and November 2020. Based on results statistically analyzed through multivariate regression tests, the most significant exploratory variable for the mangroves’ degradation process (p<0.05) was “mangrove occupation”, regardless of age, sex, schooling, time in the same residence, profession, home distance from the mangrove, landslide events, and risk of floods. We have concluded that distance from home, ecological function, intervention in biodiversity conservation, as well as water-climatic and geo-physical threats are factors closely correlated to mangroves’ environmental conservation and management (p<0.05).
WITHDRAWN: Numerical and Empirical Studies on Friction Stir Welding of Yellow Brass 405-20
Authors: Raza Syed Farhan , Khan Sarmad Ali , Farhan Muhammad , Ahmed Naveed , Habib Muhammad Salman , Mehdi Ahmed M. 
Published: October 2021

Abstract

Friction stir welding (FSW) is an eco-friendly and solid-state joining technology. Due to this reason, industries are keenly adopting this joining process in their various applications e.g., automobile, aerospace, marine, etc. Several materials have already been welded by FSW including aluminum, copper, steel, alloys of these materials, plastics, composites, and list are still going on. Few researchers have welded the brass using FSW. In this research, yellow brass 405-20 is welded with FSW for the very first time. Thermal distribution during FSW of brass was recorded via both simulations and experiments. Moreover, ultimate tensile strength was also measured numerically with its validation from its empirical counterpart. Finally, hardness was measured numerically in the form of compressive strength of welded brass, and it was also validated experimentally. Three aspects of validated simulations were never studied for brass 405-20 before and finally a good and close match was found between results from both simulations and experiments.
Determination of Heavy Metals in Surface Water, Sediments and Planktons at the Junction of Multiple Rivers (Punjnad Headworks) and Their Impact on Human Health
Authors: Naz Saima , Mansouri Borhan , Chatha Ahmad Manan Mustafa , Ullah Qudrat , Abadeen Zain Ul , Khan Muhammad Zahoor , Khan Adnan , Saeed Saba , Bhat Rayees Ahmad 
Published: October 2021

Abstract
This study was conducted to calculate the burden of heavy metals i.e., aluminium (Al), arsenic (As), barium (Ba) and lead (Pb) in the river water of Punjnad Headworks, Bahawalpur, Pakistan. For this purpose, samples were collected from surface water, bed sediments and planktons during autumn, winter and spring seasons (September 2018 to May 2019). The results showed that in surface water Pb concentration was highest (453.87 mg L-1), while in sediments and plankton, Al concentration was highest (370.24 µg g-1 and 315.05 µg g-1, respectively). A significant difference (p < 0.000) in metal concentrations was found among surface water, bed sediments and plankton at different sampling stations during various seasons. However, findings of this study showed no adverse effects of heavy metal concentrations on human health. This study provided better understanding of various pollutants and their concentrations in water sources at the studied location.
Exploring the Effects of Landscape Structure at Multiple Scales on River Water Characteristics in the Khorramabad and Chalus River basins
Authors: Gorbandi Fatemeh Sadeghi , Torangzar Hamid , Zare Ramin , Varvani Javad , Ahmadi Abbas 
Published: October 2021

Abstract
Background

It is acknowledged that the landscape composition and configuration of land cover within a watershed could influence a watershed environmental and ecological quality. Therefore, rivers receive pollution from their surrounding landscape and the amount and intensity of this pollution are affected by the landscape structure around the river or within a watershed.
Methods

In this research, we estimated the relationship between landscape characteristics and water quality in two different basins. We used multiple stepwise regression analysis and redundancy analysis to explore the quantitative association between landscape metrics, at both the watershed and riparian buffer scales.
Results

The riparian buffer scales metrics were more effective in predicting water quality in comparison with the indices at the watershed scale. The landscape composition and configuration explained 80% of the variation in water quality at 100 m buffer, and the value decreased to 79% at 1000 m. At the 100 m buffer scale, ED of the forest, PLADJ, and MESH of urban areas in Khorramabad basin and AI of the forest, ED of urban, and SPLIT of agricultural lands were recognized as significant variables affecting the water quality in the Chalus basin. In other scales only metrics related to agriculture and urban were seen as dominant variables, indicating that these land-use classes are final determinatives in water quality changes in our study areas.
Conclusion

All dominant variables at each scale indicated a decreasing trend of the landscape impact on the water quality. Although in the Chalus basin human activities were insignificant, they had considerable effects on Chalus river quality, and urban and agriculture were recognized as dominant usages at all scales, implying that a large amount of forest cover cannot impede the effects of human activities in a basin.
A Smart Contract-based Access Control Architecture for Telemedicine During Covid-19
Authors: zerga hideyat , AMRAOUI Asma , BENMAMMAR badr 
Published: October 2021

Abstract
In the fight against the COVID-19 epidemic that is currently a major global public health issue, social distancing has been imposed to prevent the massive transmission, thus doctors in hospitals have turned to telemedicine in order to be able to monitor their patient notably those suffering from chronic diseases. To do so, patients need to share their physiological data with doctors. In order to share this data safely, prevent malicious users from tampering with it and protect the privacy of patients, access control becomes a fundamental requirement.
In order to set up a real-time (Internet of Thing) IoT enabled healthcare system (HS) scenario like telemedicine, Fog computing (FC) seems to be the best solution comparing to Cloud computing since it provides low latency, highly mobile and geo-distributed services and temporary storage. In this paper, the focus is on access control in the telemedicine systems. Our proposal is based, on one hand, the concept of Fog computing to ensure the distributed aspect needed in the monitoring of patient health remotely; and on the other hand Blockchain (BC) smart contracts, in order to provide a dynamic, optimized and self-adjusted access control.
3GOLD: Optimized Levenshtein distance for clustering third-generation sequencing data
Authors: Logan Robert , Fleischmann Zoe , Annis Sofia , Wehe Amy , Tilly Jonathan L. , Woods Dori C. , Khrapko Konstantin 
Published: October 2021

Abstract

Background:Third-generation sequencing offers some advantages over next-generation sequencing predecessors, but with the caveat of harboring a much higher error rate. Clustering-related sequences is an essential task in modern biology. To accurately cluster sequences rich in errors, error type and frequency need to be accounted for. Levenshtein distance is a well-established mathematical algorithm for measuring the edit distance between words and can specifically weight insertions, deletions and substitutions. However, there are drawbacks to using Levenshtein distance in a biological context and hence have rarely been used for this purpose. We present novel modifications to the Levenshtein distance algorithm to optimize it for clustering error-rich biological sequencing data.Results: We successfully introduced a bidirectional frameshift allowance with end-user determined accommodation caps combined with weighted error discrimination. Furthermore, our modifications dramatically improved the computational speed of Levenstein distance. For simulated ONT MinION and PacBio Sequel datasets, the average clustering sensitivity for 3GOLD was 41.45% (S.D. 10.39) higher than Sequence-Levenstein distance, 52.14% (S.D. 9.43) higher than Levenshtein distance, 55.93% (S.D. 8.67) higher than Starcode, 42.68% (S.D. 8.09) higher than CD-HIT-EST and 61.49% (S.D. 7.81) higher than DNACLUST. For biological ONT MinION data, 3GOLD clustering sensitivity was 27.99% higher than Sequence-Levenstein distance, 52.76% higher than Levenshtein distance, 56.39% higher than Starcode, 48% higher than CD-HIT-EST and 70.4% higher than DNACLUST.Conclusion:Our modifications to Levenshtein distance have improved its speed and accuracy compared to the classic Levenshtein distance, Sequence-Levenshtein distance and other commonly used clustering approaches on simulated and biological third-generation sequenced datasets. Our clustering approach is appropriate for datasets of unknown cluster centroids, such as those generated with unique molecular identifiers as well as known centroids such as barcoded datasets. A strength of our approach is high accuracy in resolving small clusters and mitigating the number of singletons.
Influences of Organic Loading, Feed-To-Inoculum Ratio, And Different Pretreatment Strategies On The Methane Production Performance of Eggplant Stalk
Authors: Zhu Zhe , Zhang Si , Song Chao , Wang Ligong , Cai Fanfan , Chen Chang , Liu Guangqing 
Published: October 2021

Abstract
A large amount of eggplant straw (ES) is incinerated after harvesting of eggplant every year, which aggravates environmental pollution and waste of resources. Converting ES into methane through anaerobic digestion (AD) technology may be a potential treatment method, considering the low environmental impact and high energy recovery. Firstly, this study explored the effects of organic loading (OL) and feed to inoculum ratio (F/I ratio) on the AD of ES by response surface methodology (RSM). In order to achieve higher AD efficiency, various pretreatments (acid, alkali, alkaline hydrogen peroxide (AHP), microwave and ultrasound) were introduced and comprehensively assessed with regard to methane production performance, organic matter destruction and kinetic parameters. Results showed that OL had a more significant impact on AD process compared to F/I ratio and methane production was enhanced remarkably when the OL and F/I ratio were 35.0 g VS/L and 3.0, respectively. XRD, FTIR, and SEM analyses of pretreated ES showed that alkali and AHP pretreatments performed better in delignification. Under optimal conditions, the ES pretreated with 1.5% AHP (adjusted by KOH) performed the maximum methane production of 262.2 mL/g VS with a Bd of 95.0%, which increased by 334.1% than untreated ES. This paper not only provides the theoretical data about methane production performance of ES but also gives practical guidance for efficient utilization of similar vegetable straw biowastes, which is also promising for large-scale industrial applications in the future.
Development of novel Mixed Reality-Based Simulator for Endoscopic Transnasal Surgery with HoloLens and multiple AR tracker
Authors: Katayama Yoshihide , Ikeda Naokado , Kawabata Shinji , Furuse Motomasa , Nonoguchi Naosuke , Yagi Ryokichi , Hiramatsu Ryo , Fujishiro Takahiro , Tamura Yoji , Kuroiwa Toshihiko , Itamiya Tomoki , Wanibuchi Masahiko 
Published: October 2021

Abstract
Background

Virtual reality (VR) and mixed reality (MR) are now widely applied for preoperative simulation and intraoperative navigation.
Methods

We developed an MR-based simulator for endoscopic transnasal surgery (ETNS) with a head-mounted display HoloLens and evaluated its usefulness. This simulator consisted of MR images of patients and an MR endoscope. HoloLens was used for projection of MR images and recognition of markers. The MR images were reconstructed from the preoperative images of patients and superimposed onto the endoscopic training model of the head. The MR endoscope was superimposed onto a three-dimensional (3D) printed replica of an endoscope. The MR endoscopic images from the replica of the endoscope were projected in the operator’s visual field. The MR images followed the manipulation of the replica of the endoscope through a nasal cavity on the training model. To evaluate the developed simulator, the MR endoscopic images were compared with video-recorded actual operative endoscopic views. And face validity and content validity of the simulator were evaluated by senior residents, using a 5-point Likert scale.
Result

The 3D MR images through HoloLens correlated well with the actual intraoperative views. Although there was an innate learning curve with the simulator, the face validity and the content validity demonstrated effective simulation of an operative field of view with real-time characteristics of the surgical procedure.
Conclusions

Our developed simulator for ETNS will contribute to learning the unique and the limited surgical fields through the narrow surgical corridor with endoscope, particularly for novice surgeons.
Governing river rehabilitation projects for transformative capacity development
Authors: Martel Patrick , Sutherland Catherine , Hannan Sylvia 
Published: October 2021

Abstract
River rehabilitation projects are framed as water security interventions in South Africa. They aim to address water quality and water quantity issues, as well as to improve socio-ecological relationships. These projects acknowledge the value of capacity building and social learning in enhancing water security. However, they adopt different governance approaches and hence have different knowledge construction and capacity building outcomes. This paper employs a ‘governmentality’ framework to analyse the capacity development processes within three river rehabilitation projects in Durban, South Africa. The analysis revealed that the three projects, with their different governmentalities, produced different capacity development modalities, which are utilised to sustain ‘the object of intervention’ in each river rehabilitation project. However, despite these differences, information as the currency of action; the context or site of learning; the importance of building state–citizen relationships; and the need for bridges or intermediaries, emerged as common elements which support capacity building and knowledge sharing across all three projects.
Review of rheological behaviour of sewage sludge and its importance in the management of wastewater treatment plants
Authors: Collivignarelli M. C. , Carnevale Miino M. , Bellazzi S. , Caccamo F. M. , Durante A. , Abbà A. 
Published: October 2021

Abstract
The process operation of wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) is based on the proper set up of several physical, chemical and biological parameters. Often, issues and problems arising in the process are strictly linked to the rheological behaviour of sewage sludge (SeS). Therefore, rheological measurements, which recently have captured a growing interest, represent an important aspect to consider in the design and operation of WWTPs, especially in the sludge-handling processes. The knowledge of rheological behaviour of SeS represents a crucial step to better understand its flow behaviour and therefore optimize the performance of the processes, minimizing the costs. The SeS are non-Newtonian fluids and, to date, Bingham and Ostwald models are the most applied. This work presents an overview of scientific literature about the rheological properties of SeS and discusses the importance of its knowledge for the management of WWTPs.
CAUSAS DA ROTATIVIDADE DE EMPREGADOS EM ESCRITÓRIOS CONTÁBEIS: UM ESTUDO MULTICASO
Authors: Eckert Alex , Orsso Giovana Caregnato , Mecca Marlei Salete , Biasio Roberto 
Published: October 2021

A rotatividade é o fluxo de entradas e saídas de empregados constantes em uma empresa. Essa movimentação é um fenômeno que vem sendo alvo de pesquisas, visto que essa rotatividade, na maioria das vezes, não é interessante para as empresas. Diante disso, o objetivo deste estudo é diagnosticar as causas que levam a rotatividade de colaboradores em escritórios de contabilidade. Para atingir este objetivo realizou-se um estudo de caso múltiplo junto aos gestores e funcionários de alguns escritórios de contabilidade localizados na cidade de Caxias do Sul-RS. O levantamento foi realizado com base na aplicação de dois questionários, um que o dirigido aos gestores, que foi aplicado através de entrevista estruturada e o outro foi enviado aos funcionários para que os mesmos respondessem de forma escrita, com posterior devolução. A pesquisa, de caráter descritivo, foi analisada quantitativamente e qualitativamente, considerando-se os dados obtidos a partir das respostas dos questionários. Os principais resultados indicam que existe a necessidade na revisão na forma de remuneração dos empregados, bem como a análise de novas estratégias para as condições motivacionais do ambiente de trabalho.
nos.
QUALIDADE DA INFORMAÇÃO CONTÁBIL: UMA INVESTIGAÇÃO SOBRE O NÍVEL DE PERCEPÇÃO QUALITATIVA DOS CONTADORES E AUDITORES DO DISTRITO FEDERAL
Authors: Cappellesso Géssica , Rodrigues Jomar Miranda , Vieira Eduardo Tadeu 
Published: October 2021

A contabilidade tem o objetivo de prestar informações contábeis úteis aos seus usuários, contudo ainda é difícil identificar suas determinantes. Nesse sentido, o objetivo do estudo foi verificar o nível de percepção que os profissionais contábeis do Distrito Federal detêm sobre o gerenciamento de resultado, conservadorismo, value relevance e persistência serem proxies da qualidade da informação. Para isso, foram aplicados questionários em uma amostra de 72 pessoas, onde as respostas foram agrupadas por baterias de inter-relação e analisadas por distribuições de frequência. Os resultados mostraram que o value relevance é a proxy mais percebida, seguida pelo gerenciamento de resultado, conservadorismo e persistência. Ainda, observou-se que há autores e respondentes que consideram que o gerenciamento de resultados deteriora a qualidade da informação, enquanto outros acham que pode haver uma melhora ou piora na qualidade, dependendo dos motivos. Além disso, constatou-se que a maior parte dos respondentes julgam que o conservadorismo e o value relevance melhoram a utilidade, mas que a maioria deles não são conservadores. Por fim, foi verificado um baixo nível de percepção em relação à proxy de persistência. Assim, é possível concluir que certas proxies são mais percebidas que outras, e que a maioria das percepções tem embasamento teórico.
The Principle of ‘Damage’ as Guidance for Civil Society Roles in Islamic Built Environment
Authors: Syed Abdullah Sharifah Fadylawaty , Muhamad Mohd Dani , Yaakub Ezani , Yusoff Kamariah 
Published: October 2021

Uncontrolled urbanization harms both the environment and society. Sole environmental responsibility has diminished the community's sense of responsibility. In this way, Local Agenda 21 aims to engage all parties, including civil society. This paper will explore the ‘Damage' principle in relation to the environmental roles of civil society. Content from Kitab al-I'lan Bi Ahkam Al-Bunyan was analyzed. The findings revealed several fiqh-related essences related to civil society roles. A sustainable built environment requires policymakers and society to reexamine community involvement levels, types, and forms.
Keywords: Civil society; built environment; fiqh; 'Damage.'
eISSN: 2398-4287 © 2020. The Authors. Published for AMER ABRA cE-Bs by e-International Publishing House, Ltd., UK. This is an open access article under the CC BYNC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). Peer–review under responsibility of AMER (Association of Malaysian Environment-Behaviour Researchers), ABRA (Association of Behavioural Researchers on Asians) and cE-Bs (Centre for Environment-Behaviour Studies), Faculty of Architecture, Planning & Surveying, Universiti Teknologi MARA, Malaysia.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.21834/ebpj.v6iSI6.3040