bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Exposure to incense burning, biomarkers, and the physical health of temple workers in Taiwan
Authors: Guo Su-Er , Ratner Pamela A. , Tseng Sung-Chih , Lin Chieh-Mo , Chi Miao-Ching , Lee Chiang-Wen , Yu Ying-Chun 
Published: September 2023

AbstractIncense burning releases heavy particulate matter (PM) and nitrogen dioxide (NO2), known to have adverse effects on human health. Long-term exposure to PM and NO2 increases inflammatory cytokine levels and can induce respiratory diseases. This study examined the association between incense burning exposure and the health status, especially inflammatory biomarkers, of temple workers and volunteers in Taiwan. The longitudinal observational study compared adult temple workers and volunteers, with long-term incense burning exposure, to residents from outpatient clinics in the Chiayi area. Forced expiratory volume in 1 s (FEV1) and serum and exhaled breath condensate (EBC) cytokines were assessed. Nonparametric Mann-Whitney U tests were used to compare cytokine levels of the exposure and control groups during the cold and hot weather seasons. FEV1 was significantly more diminished in the exposed group than in the control group during the cold season. Exposure status was associated with greater hot-cold seasonal differences in serum interleukins (IL)-1β (regression coefficient (B) = 6.6, 95% confidence interval (CI) = 5.0 to 8.3, p < .001), IL17-A (B = 2.4, 95% CI = 0.3 to 4.5, p = .03), and plasminogen activator inhibitor [PAI]-1 (B = 5.4, 95% CI = 1.5 to 9.3, p = .009). After adjusting for confounders, the groups’ serum levels of IL-1β, IL-17A, and PAI-1 significantly differed. EBC cytokines did not show significant differences. Elevated levels of IL-1β, IL17-A, and PAI-1 have been associated with various autoinflammatory syndromes and diseases. Given the cultural significance of incense burning, culturally sensitive interventions, including education, policy development, and program implementation, are crucial to protect individuals’ health, especially temple workers, from the adverse effects of exposure, addressing the manufacture, importation, and sale of incense.
The two-component Beta-t-QVAR-M-lev: a new forecasting model
Authors: Haddad Michel Ferreira Cardia , Blazsek Szabolcs , Arestis Philip , Fuerst Franz , Sheng Hsia Hua 
Published: September 2023

AbstractWe introduce a new joint model of expected return and volatility forecasting, namely the two-component Beta-t-QVAR-M-lev (quasi-vector autoregression in-mean with leverage). The maximum likelihood estimator for the two-component Beta-t-QVAR-M-lev is an extension of theoretical results of the one-component Beta-t-QVAR-M. We compare the volatility forecasting performance of the two-component Beta-t-QVAR-M-lev and two-component GARCH-M (generalized autoregressive conditional heteroscedasticity), also considering their one-component frameworks. The results for G20 stock market indices indicate that the forecasting performance of the two-component Beta-t-QVAR-M-lev is superior compared with the two-component GARCH-M and their one-component versions.
Curcumin-activated Olfactory Ensheathing Cells Improve Functional Recovery After Spinal Cord Injury by Modulating Microglia Polarization Through APOE/TREM2/NF-κB Signaling Pathway
Authors: Jiang Chao , Chen Zhe , Wang Xiaohui , Zhang Yongyuan , Guo Xinyu , Fan Hong , Huang Dageng , He Yuqing , Tang Xiangwen , Ai Yixiang , Liu Youjun , Yang Hao , Hao Dingjun 
Published: September 2023

AbstractTransplantation of curcumin-activated olfactory ensheathing cells (aOECs) improved functional recovery in spinal cord injury (SCI) rats. Nevertheless, little is known considering the underlying mechanisms. At the present study, we investigated the promotion of regeneration and functional recovery after transplantation of aOECs into rats with SCI and the possible underlying molecular mechanisms. Primary OECs were prepared from the olfactory bulb of rats, followed by treatment with 1µM CCM at 7–10 days of culture, resulting in cell activation. Concomitantly, rat SCI model was developed to evaluate the effects of transplantation of aOECs in vivo. Subsequently, microglia were isolated, stimulated with 100 ng/mL lipopolysaccharide (LPS) for 24 h to polarize to M1 phenotype and treated by aOECs conditional medium (aOECs-CM) and OECs conditional medium (OECs-CM), respectively. Changes in the expression of pro-inflammatory and anti-inflammatory phenotypic markers expression were detected using western blotting and immunofluorescence staining, respectively. Finally, a series of molecular biological experiments including knock-down of triggering receptor expressed on myeloid cells 2 (TREM2) and analysis of the level of apolipoprotein E (APOE) expression were performed to investigate the underlying mechanism of involvement of CCM-activated OECs in modulating microglia polarization, leading to neural regeneration and function recovery. CCM-activated OECs effectively attenuated deleterious inflammation by regulating microglia polarization from the pro-inflammatory (M1) to anti-inflammatory (M2) phenotype in SCI rats and facilitated functional recovery after SCI. In addition, microglial polarization to M2 elicited by aOECs-CM in LPS-induced microglia was effectively reversed when TREM2 expression was downregulated. More importantly, the in vitro findings indicated that aOECs-CM potentiating LPS-induced microglial polarization to M2 was partially mediated by the TREM2/nuclear factor kappa beta (NF-κB) signaling pathway. Besides, the expression of APOE significantly increased in CCM-treated OECs. CCM-activated OECs could alleviate inflammation after SCI by switching microglial polarization from M1 to M2, which was likely mediated by the APOE/TREM2/NF-κB pathway, and thus ameliorated neurological function. Therefore, the present finding is of paramount significance to enrich the understanding of underlying molecular mechanism of aOECs-based therapy and provide a novel therapeutic approach for treatment of SCI.
Multi-harmonic forced vibration and resonance of simple beams to moving vehicles
Authors: Sun Zhi , Sun Limin , Xia Ye 
Published: September 2023

AbstractThis study modeled the moving-vehicle-induced forcing excitation on a single-span prismatic bridge as a multiple frequency-multiplication harmonic load on the modal coordinates of a linear elastic simple Euler–Bernoulli beam, and investigated the forced modal oscillation and resonance behavior of this type of dynamic system. The forced modal responses consist of multiple frequency-multiplication steady-state harmonics and one damped mono-frequency complementary harmonic. The analysis revealed that a moving load induces high-harmonic forced resonance amplification when the moving speed is low. To verify the occurrence of high-harmonic forced resonance, numerical tests were conducted on single-span simple beams based on structural modeling using the finite element method (FEM) and a moving sprung-mass oscillator vehicle model. The forced resonance amplification characteristics of the fundamental mode for beam response estimation are presented with consideration to different end restraint conditions. The results reveal that the high-harmonic forced resonance may be significant for the investigated beams subjected to vehicle loads moving at specific low speeds. For the investigated single-span simple beams, the moving vehicle carriage heaving oscillation modulates the beam modal frequency, but does not induce notable variation of the modal oscillation harmonic structure for the cases that vehicle of small mass moves in low speed.
On the performance and scalability of consensus mechanisms in privacy-enabled decentralized renewable energy marketplace
Authors: Tkachuk Roman-Valentyn , Ilie Dragos , Robert Remi , Kebande Victor , Tutschku Kurt 
Published: September 2023

AbstractRenewable energy sources were introduced as an alternative to fossil fuel sources to make electricity generation cleaner. However, today’s renewable energy markets face a number of limitations, such as inflexible pricing models and inaccurate consumption information. These limitations can be addressed with a decentralized marketplace architecture. Such architecture requires a mechanism to guarantee that all marketplace operations are executed according to predefined rules and regulations. One of the ways to establish such a mechanism is blockchain technology. This work defines a decentralized blockchain-based peer-to-peer (P2P) energy marketplace which addresses actors’ privacy and the performance of consensus mechanisms. The defined marketplace utilizes private permissioned Ethereum-based blockchain client Hyperledger Besu (HB) and its smart contracts to automate the P2P trade settlement process. Also, to make the marketplace compliant with energy trade regulations, it includes the regulator actor, which manages the issue and consumption of guarantees of origin and certifies the renewable energy sources used to generate traded electricity. Finally, the proposed marketplace incorporates privacy-preserving features, allowing it to generate private transactions and store them within a designated group of actors. Performance evaluation results of HB-based marketplace with three main consensus mechanisms for private networks, i.e., Clique, IBFT 2.0, and QBFT, demonstrate a lower throughput than another popular private permissioned blockchain platform Hyperledger Fabric (HF). However, the lower throughput is a side effect of the Byzantine Fault Tolerant characteristics of HB’s consensus mechanisms, i.e., IBFT 2.0 and QBFT, which provide increased security compared to HF’s Crash Fault Tolerant consensus RAFT.
Operational strategies to deal with the COVID-19 emergency: recommendations from the Italian national society SIAGASCOT following the introduction of vaccines against the SARS-CoV-2 infection
Authors: Compagnoni Riccardo , Cucchi Davide , Klumpp Raymond , Ronga Mario , Berruto Massimo , Di Giacomo Giovanni , Randelli Pietro S. ,   SIAGASCOT “Guidelines” Work-group, Carrozzo Alessandro , Formigoni Chiara , Rosa Francesco , Sciancalepore Fabio 
Published: September 2023

Abstract
Background
This article aims to present the operational recommendations adopted by the Italian national society for orthopaedic surgery, arthroscopy, and sports medicine (SIAGASCOT) in managing patients eligible to undergo elective orthopaedic surgery during the COVID-19 pandemic after the beginning of a national vaccination campaign.

Materials and methods
An extensive literature search, analysing medical databases and scientific societies protocols, was performed to support this document. A four-step approach was used: 1—definition of priorities; 2—definition of significant clusters of interventions; 3—extraction of recommendations from international literature; and 4—adaptation of the recommendations to the specific features of the Italian healthcare system.

Results
Three operational priorities were defined (“continuity of care and containment of the virus spread”, “examination of waiting lists”, and “definition of the role of vaccines”), six significant clusters of intervention were identified, and recommendations regarding the risk management for healthcare staff and hospital facility as well as the preoperative, in-hospital, and postoperative management were produced. Patient selection, preoperative screening, and pre-hospitalization procedures, which are regarded as pivotal roles in the safe management of patients eligible to undergo elective orthopaedic surgery, were analysed extensively.

Conclusions
This document presents national-wide recommendations for managing patients eligible to undergo elective orthopaedic surgery with the beginning of the vaccination campaign. This paper could be the basis for similar documents adapted to the local healthcare systems in other countries.

Level of evidence
Level IV.
Is medical device regulatory compliance growing as fast as extended reality to avoid misunderstandings in the future?
Authors: Bini Fabiano , Franzò Michela , Maccaro Alessia , Piaggio Davide , Pecchia Leandro , Marinozzi Franco 
Published: September 2023

Abstract
Purpose
European Extended Reality (XR) industry is expected to significantly increase by 2025 with an extreme impact on the Healthcare scenario. Considering that the transition period for the Medical Device Regulation 2017/745 (MDR 2017/745) will end in May 2024, purpose of this study is to assess whether the Medical Device Regulatory Compliance is ready to cope with the inclusion of XR and its possible social and economic impact in the world of medical device software (MDSW).

Methods
XR publications patterns were evaluated since MDR 2017/745 release on different databases. European normative about MDSW are consulted, followed by the European Database of Medical Devices (EUDAMED).

Results
The number of publications on XR have increased since 2017 and healthcare is the third highest-impacted subject area. Specific classes for software have been introduces in the European Nomenclature of Medical Devices (EMDN) and some XR applications have already been registered in EUDAMED classified as MDSW.

Conclusions
XR will become intrinsic in everyday medical protocol and guidelines. The establishment of the IEEE Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality Working Group and the statement of VR for remoting surgery as a MDSW in MDCG 2019-11 are demonstration of the necessity of MD regulatory compliance in being able to keep up with the upcoming XR technologies. The Authors agree that the competent authorities should consider intervening in the European Regulative Compliance to cope with the revolution of Phygital in Healthcare and to regulate procedures involving the use of XR in medicine preventing future misunderstanding and criticalities especially for high risk situations.
Enhancement of alkaline saline soil-free bare substrates and specialist ecosystems, southern New Zealand
Authors: Rufaut Cathy , Pillai Dhana , Craw Dave 
Published: September 2023

AbstractSpecialist ecosystems have developed on small areas (< 1 ha) of alkaline (pH 7–10) soil-free disturbed substrates in semiarid areas of southern New Zealand, where rare endemic plants are being outcompeted by adventive species as soil develops. We have conducted a pilot study for soil and weed removal at seven sites to increasing habitat availability for the rare plants. Six sites are on impermeable clay-altered schist where evaporation of marine aerosols in rain has formed localised NaCl-rich encrustations. These bare substrates host endemic salt-tolerant plants (halophytes), especially where electrical conductivity (EC) exceeds 1 mS/cm and excludes most weeds. One site is on limestone and associated erosional residues, where endemic calciflora have evolved on substrates that have pH of 7–8 and variable EC. Soil and weeds were removed to a depth of ~ 0.5 m, and the study plots were monitored for changes in substrate salinity, pH and plant colonisation for up to 1.5 years. The most successful saline plot, an abandoned mining area, had initial halophyte colonisation after 4 months, and after a year, the halophytes had achieved > 50% substrate coverage. The other saline plots also had lesser halophyte colonisation and more weed incursion. Bare limestone talus that had weeds allowed successful calciphyte germination. Parts of the limestone site where weeds and soil were removed had no calciphyte colonisation but significant weed development after 6 months. Our results suggest that soil removal is a viable management option for enhancing ecosystems that require bare substrates, preferably with deeper (~ 1 m) excavation.
Social sentiment and impact in US equity market: an automated approach
Authors: Nuñez-Mora José Antonio , Mendoza-Urdiales Román A. 
Published: September 2023

AbstractIn this study, a database of approximately 50 million tweets was used for the estimation of the positive and negative sentiment factors for 2557 companies operating in US stock market. For each company, the sentiment factors were calculated through the mean equations on GARCH models of different orders. Our findings show that, for 503 companies the negative factor effect has a greater impact than the positive factor effect. The period analyzed was from October 2022 to January 2023, using hourly observations. Results provide evidence to support that there is an asymmetric effect from the factors traveling to the stock market and it takes at least an hour the signal to travel. The investors and regulatory agents can find useful the results given that news has been demonstrated a source of influence in the market. Therefore, news impact can be modeled into portfolio theory using GARCH which is easy to implement and to interpret. Given the exposure of prices and volatility to news, it can be considered that these findings provide evidence to support efficient market hypothesis. Modeling returns and volatility for the assets through GARCH family is a widely known tool. Including the news sentiment on social media is dually a novelty: the empirical demonstration of the effects of social comments on the stock performance and volatility, in addition to the use of a large data set of social network comments in an hourly frequency.
Are debt-for-nature swaps scalable: Which nature, how much debt, and who pays?
Authors: Nedopil Christoph , Yue Mengdi , Hughes Alice C. 
Published: September 2023

AbstractWith the ongoing sovereign debt and biodiversity crises in many emerging economies, applications of debt-for-nature swaps as a dual solution for sovereign debt and nature conservation have been re-emerging. We analyze how debt-for-nature swaps (DNS) can be scaled to protect biodiversity priority areas and reduce debt burden. We build a dataset for biodiversity conservation and debt restructuring in 67 countries at risk of sovereign debt distress and show that they hold over 22% of global biodiversity priority areas, 82.96% of which are unprotected. Furthermore, we show that for 35 of the 67 countries, using conservative cost estimates, 100% of unprotected biodiversity priority areas could be protected for a fraction of debt; for the remaining countries, applying DNS would allow the protection of 11–13% of currently unprotected biodiversity priority areas. By applying interdisciplinary research combining fundamental biodiversity and economic data and methods merging, the research contributes methodologically and practically to the understanding of debt-for-nature swaps for emerging economies.
Unbounded Hamiltonians generated by Parseval frames
Authors: Bagarello F. , Kużel S. 
Published: September 2023

AbstractIn Bagarello and Kużel (Acta Appl Math 171:4, 2021) Parseval frames were used to define bounded Hamiltonians, both in finite and in infinite dimesional Hilbert spaces. Here we continue this analysis, with a particular focus on the discrete spectrum of Hamiltonian operators constructed as a weighted infinite sum of rank one operators defined by some Parseval frame living in an infinite dimensional Hilbert space. The main difference with Bagarello and Kużel (Acta Appl Math 171:4, 2021) is that, here, the operators we consider are mostly unbounded. This is an useful upgrade with respect to our previous results, since physically meaningful Hamiltonians are indeed often unbounded. However, due to the fact that frames (in general) are not bases, the definition of an Hamiltonian is not so easy, and part of our results goes in this direction. Also, we analyze the eigenvalues of the Hamiltonians, and we discuss some physical applications of our framework.
Recent development in the application of walnut processing by-products (walnut shell and walnut husk)
Authors: Fordos Summaia , Abid Namrah , Gulzar Muhammad , Pasha Imran , Oz Fatih , Shahid Arashi , Khan Muhammad Kashif Iqbal , Mousavi Khaneghah Amin , Aadil Rana Muhammad 
Published: September 2023

AbstractWalnut is among the four most consumed dry fruits around the globe. Apart from the edible walnut kernel, walnut fruit consists of a walnut shell (WS) and walnut husk/hull (WH), usually discarded in walnut processing and consumption. These walnut by-products are filled with beneficial compounds that find their use in different fields. This review summarizes recent developments and research on functional aspects of walnut waste (shell and husk/hull) in various fields. WS has many important bioactive compounds, including lignin, cellulose, oleic, and palmitic acids. The creation of WS and carbon-based materials, such as activated carbons and unmodified/modified WS, as adsorbents have been explored. Possible uses for WS-derived by-products include all-natural but powerful adsorbents for eliminating hazardous substances, such as heavy metals, dangerous compounds, and synthetic industrial colors. Similarly, WH also has many beneficial compounds like juglone. WH has antioxidant properties and can be used as textile and protein strainers. These wastes are used in agriculture, laboratory, medical, and food industries, which can be employed as sustainable and environment-friendly alternatives.
Exploratory study of potential usefulness of cost-effective composites thin films for energy device
Authors: Hammi Maryama 
Published: September 2023

AbstractIn this study, we synthesized neat and loaded lead phosphate glass (PbO–P2O5) with the inclusion of Cr, Co, Ni, and Zn using an inexpensive sol–gel technique. These composites were then deposited on silica glass substrates. Our objective was to investigate the influence of these fillers on the properties of the glass. The concentrations of the fillers were varied from 0 to 16 wt%, and the resulting thin films were characterized by measuring the absorption coefficient and estimating the optical band gap at room temperature. Additionally, we measured the electrical resistivity of the semiconducting thin films as a function of filler concentrations and temperature. To assess the overall performance of the films, we calculated the figure of merit using the Iles and Soclof approach, considering the DC resistance versus free carrier concentration and absorption coefficient. Interestingly, our results revealed a significant improvement in the figure of merit at specific filler concentrations. The obtained results are comprehensive and provide detailed insights. They indicate that the thin films produced in this study have the potential to be useful in energy devices, particularly in applications involving P–N junctions and similar structures.