bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Elimination Disorders and Associated Factors among Children and Adolescents Age 5–14 Year-old attending Pediatric Outpatient Clinic at Wolaita Sodo University Comprehensive Specialized hospital, South Ethiopia
Authors: Berhanu Tamene , Abera Mubarek , Girma Shimelis , Tesfaye Yonas 
Published: July 2023

Abstract

Background: Elimination disorder occurs when a child aged five and above passes urine or, aged four and above, defecates feces in inappropriate locations, whether voluntary or involuntary. Pediatric elimination disorders are not well understood by parents, teachers, medical professionals, mental health practitioners, and researchers. Hence, this study aimed to assess the magnitude of elimination disorder and associated factors among children and Adolescents aged 5–14 years old at Wolaita Sodo University Comprehensive Specialized Hospital, South Ethiopia, in 2022.Method:A hospital-based cross-sectional study was conducted from September 22 to November 22, 2022, at Wolaita Sodo University Comprehensive Specialized Hospital. A systematic random sampling technique was employed to select 423 study subjects. The data were gathered using a structured, face-to-face interviewer-administered questionnaire. The development of the symptom score for dysfunctional elimination syndrome of Vancouver questionnaires was used to screen for elimination disorders. Logistic regression model was used to determine the association between the outcome and independent variables. A 95% CI and Odds ratio with corresponding p-value < 0.05 were used to determine the strength of association.Result:The overall magnitude of elimination disorder among children and Adolescents age 5–14 in this study was (n 70, 16.8%); in boys (n 47, 17.3%) and girls (n 23, 15.75%). The prevalence of enuresis was (n 64, 15.3%), encopresis (n 15, 3.6%), both enuresis and encopresis, or combined elimination disorder (n 9, 2.2%). Age 9–11 years (AOR=3.2, 95%CI:1.09, 9.43), family size (AOR=3.4, 95%CI:1.78, 6.56), family history of elimination disorder (AOR=3.9, 95%CI:2.12, 7.45), emotional problem (AOR=2.2, 95%CI:1.18, 4.05), hyperactive problem (AOR=3.8, 95%CI:1.83, 7.83), low toilet training skills (AOR=5.9, 95%CI:2.61, 13.33), bad parenting practices, were poor supervision (AOR=4.4, 95%CI:1.29, 14.69) were significantly associated with elimination disorder.Conclusion and Recommendation:In this study, approximately one in five children and adolescents had an elimination disorder. Younger age, large family size, positive family history of elimination disorder, presence of emotional and hyperactive problems, bad parenting practices, and low toilet training skills were factors associated with elimination disorders. Therefore, a holistic approach to early detection and management is important to reverse the impact of the problem.
Epitranscriptomic Regulation of Osteoblast Function: Unveiling the Role of METTL3 and the m6A/YTHDF3/SOX4 Signaling Axis
Authors: Feng Zhi-wei , Peng Bo , Wang Sheng-hong , Zhao Da-cheng , Yang Ao , Zhan Hong-wei , Wang Yao-bin , Sheng Xiao-yun , Xu Li-hu , Ren Xiao-jun , Liu Jin-min , Yang Fei , Tang Yu-chen , Geng Bin , Xia Ya-yi 
Published: July 2023

AbstractOsteoblasts, the primary cells responsible for bone formation, play a crucial role in synthesizing the collagen matrix and mineralizing the bone matrix. N6-methyladenosine (m6A) has been closely associated with the osteogenic function of osteoblasts. This study focused on exploring the underlying mechanisms of osteogenesis influenced by methyltransferase like-3 (METTL3) and its target genes. The conditional knockout of METTL3 in osteoblasts hinders their proliferation and differentiation into bone-forming cells, as revealed by our findings. Through meRIP-seq and functional analyses, we confirm the involvement of the key transcription factor, SRY-box 4 (SOX4), in m6A-mediated regulation of cell proliferation and differentiation during osteogenesis. Furthermore, we demonstrate that the reader protein YTH N6-methyladenosine RNA binding protein 3 (YTHDF3) enhances the stability of SOX4 mRNA by recognizing the methylation modification catalyzed by METTL3. Moreover, the overexpression of SOX4 in mice protects against osteoporosis induced by estrogen deficiency. Mechanistically, we have identified the m6A/YTHDF3/SOX4 signaling axis as a pivotal downstream pathway responsible for regulating m6A in osteoblasts. Our results establish that METTL3 promotes osteoblast proliferation and differentiation through the m6A/YTHDF3/SOX4 signaling axis, revealing novel epitranscriptomic mechanisms relevant to skeletal health and diseases.
Effect of microalgal based diets on growth, proximate, fatty acid and amino acid composition of water flea (Daphnia magna)
Authors: Zeybek Yusuf Gufran , Sayar Merve , Eryalçın Kamil Mert 
Published: July 2023

Abstract
Water flea (Daphnia magna) is used as live prey for freshwater and marine aquaculture species. They are also utilized as protein source in formulated diets. The culture success of zooplankton production is mainly depend on diets. The nutritional value of Daphnia magna is very important for larval and juvenile fish nutrition and this affect the survival and growth of fish. In this study, two fresh microalgae Euglena gracilis (EG) and Pavlova lutheri (PL) and four commercial dried microalgae products Algome® (dried Schizochytrium sp.), Naturiga® (dried Spirulina platensis), ProteinPlus® (PP) and AlgomeGrow® (dried Chlorella sp.) were evaluated for Daphnia magna culture. Survival, growth, fatty acids, and amino acid contents of daphnia have been studied. Higher survival supported by ProteinPlus diet (68%) and growth performance improved by utilization of fresh microalgae Euglena gracilis. Crude lipid content was increased by Algome® (8.91%) and ProteinPlus® (8.77%) diet whereas highest crude protein was obtained by Naturiga® diet (55.66%). Daphnia fed Algome® showed the highest DHA accumulation in daphnia body whereas EPA level was enhanced by ProteinPlus diet and ARA level were only supported by Naturiga® diet. There was detected a strong correlation between certain fatty acid groups (Oleic acid, α-linolenic acid, Ʃ n-3, and Ʃ n-3 HUFAs) and diets. AlgomeGrow diet enhanced whole essential amino acid contents of daphnia at the end of the experiment.
Ensemble Adversarial Defense via Integration of Multiple Dispersed Low Curvature Models
Authors: Zhao Kaikang , Chen Xi , Yu Yin , Kong Xianglong , Zhang Fan , Huang Wei 
Published: July 2023

Abstract
Integrating an ensemble of deep learning models have been extensively explored to defend adversarial attack. By promoting diversity between sub-models, the adversarial robustness can be improved, since the attack cost is increased for deceiving the majority of the sub-models in the ensemble. The existing works mainly focus on increasing diversity of feature representations or dispersion of first-order gradient with respect to input. However, the low correction between these diversity metrics and adversarial robustness limit the performance of ensemble adversarial defence and its applications. In this work, we attempt to promote the ensemble diversity through the perspective of reducing attack transferability. We identify that second-order gradients depict the loss curvature and is the key factor to the adversarial robustness. Computing the Hessian matrix, which is involved in second-order gradients, is computationally expensive. To address this issue, we approximate the Hessian-vector product by using differential approximation. Given that low curvature provides better robustness, our ensemble model takes into account the influence of curvature among different sub-models. We design a novel regularizer to train multiple more diverse low-curvature network models. Extensive experiments on different datasets show that our ensemble model exhibits better robustness against various attacks, which can demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach
A size and taxonomic assessment of non-lethal DNA sampling of gastropods using Flinders Technology Associates (FTA) cards
Authors: Leung Kelley 
Published: July 2023

Abstract

Sampling the DNA of rare animal species should have minimal impacts on individual health. This can be accomplished through non-lethal/non-invasive sampling. Few of these methods have been developed for invertebrates, including the Mollusca, which are in global decline. Tissue clipping the foot is a common non-lethal method for gastropods. However, it causes permanent damage and is inappropriate for smaller snails. This study used Flinders Technology Associates (FTA) cards to sample DNA from snail mucus for species of different sizes and habitat types, and across evolutionarily distant lineages. In a survival assay, the death rate of individuals sampled with FTA cards (12.1%) was greater than in the controls (3.7%), but the difference was not significant. Of 224 individuals representing 27 snail species (17 Hawaiian native, ten non-native) sampled using both FTA cards and tissue clipping, 80.4% of FTA samples and 91.6% of tissue samples amplified for COI, a significant difference. COI sequencing success did not differ significantly between the two methods. For individuals that failed to produce a COI sequence, an attempt was made to sequence 16S. For 16S, amplification and sequencing rates did not differ significantly between FTA and tissue samples. Habitat type and shell size did not affect FTA sampling success. Phylogenetically basal taxa exhibited lower success rates, but this may have been because of difficulty in sampling operculate taxa, and not because of identity. These results indicate that the FTA sampling is a viable non-lethal alternative to tissue clipping and can be used for diverse gastropods.
PR-YOLO: Improved YOLO for fast protozoa classification and segmentation
Authors: YANG WUJIAN , CHEN SUNYANG , CHEN GUANLIN , SHI QIHAO 
Published: July 2023

Abstract
Protozoa, such as Ceratium and Paramecium, play a fundamental role in establishing sustainable ecosystems. The distribution and classification of certain protozoa and their species are informative indicators to evaluate environmental quality. However, protozoa analysis is traditionally performed by molecular biological (DNA, RNA) or morphological methods, which are time-consuming and require an experienced laboratory operator. In this work, we adopt a deep learning-based network to solve the protozoa classification task. This method utilizes microscope images to help researchers analyse the protozoa population and species, reducing the cost of experimental sample storage and relieving the burden on laboratory operators. However, the shape and size of protozoa vary greatly, which places a great burden on the optimization of DCNN feature distillation. It is a great challenge to build a fast and precise protozoa analysis image. We present a new version of YOLO-v5 with better performance and extend it with instance segmentation called PR-YOLO. Building on the original YOLOv5, we added two extra parallel branches to PR-YOLO, which perform different segmentation subtasks: (1) a branch generates a set of prototype masks (images); (2) the other branch predicts a set of mask coefficients corresponding to prototype masks for each instance mask generation. Then, to improve the classification accuracy, we introduced transformer encoding blocks and lightweight Convolution Block Attention Modules (CBAMs) to explore the prediction potential with a self-attention mechanism. To quantitatively evaluate the performance of PR-YOLO, a comprehensive experiment was carried out on the hand-segmented microscopic protozoa images. Our model obtained the best results, with average classification accuracy of 96.83% and mean Average Precision(mAP) of 86.92% with a speed of 25.2 fps, which proves that the method has high robustness in this application field.
Precise certification of a qubit space
Authors: Białecki Tomasz , Rybotycki Tomasz , Batle Josep , Tworzydło Jakub , Bednorz Adam 
Published: July 2023

Abstract

We demonstrate an implementation of the precise test of dimension on the qubit, using the public IBM quantum computer,using the determinant dimension witness.The accuracy is below 10-3 comparing to maximal possible value of the witness in higher dimension.The test involving minimal independent sets of preparation and measurement operations (gates) is applied both for specific configurations andparametric ones. The test is be robust against nonidealities such as incoherent leakage and erroneous gate execution.Two of the IBM devices failed the test by more than 5 standard deviations, which has no simple explanation.
Safety, performance and user satisfaction study of the new ABLE lower-limb exoskeleton for individuals with SCI: the result of a co-creation process with clinicians and patients
Authors: Porras-Martínez Erika , López-Matas Helena , Lobo-Prat Joan , Kreamer-Tonin Katlin , Carnicero-Carmona Alfons , Tolrà-Campanyà Mariona , Pérez-Cañabate Florentina , Estay-Girardi José , Samitier-Pastor Beatriz 
Published: July 2023

Abstract
Background: This study assessed the safety, performance and user satisfaction of a new version of the ABLE Exoskeleton for gait training in people with spinal cord injury (SCI). This new hip-knee powered version of the exoskeleton ABLEhipknee has been developed taking into account the results of clinical trials with the previous knee powered version ABLEknee and feedback from clinicians and patients.
Methods: In this quasi-experimental study, a 10-session training program with the ABLEhipknee version was conducted on five participants with chronic, thoracic motor-complete SCI. Safety (device-related adverse events) and performance outcomes (level of assistance, donning/doffing time, therapy metrics) were recorded at every session. Standard clinical tests including 6MWT, 10MWT and TUG were carried out in the last session. The results from the present study were compared against the results obtained by a similar subset of participants from previous clinical trials with the ABLEknee version.
Results: The participants achieved a significantly better performance (higher walking time, number of steps, and distance walked, p<0.001) and experienced fewer device-related adverse events than participants from previous clinical trials where the ABLEknee was used. Participants of the present study also required lower levels of assistance to complete the therapy activities and achieved a significantly higher walking distance during the 6MWT compared to the previous clinical trials. The time to don/doff the ABLEhipknee took on average 3 minutes more than the ABLEknee with comparable levels of assistance. Regarding user satisfaction, the ABLEhipknee presented on average higher scores than the ABLEknee.
Conclusions: This study shows that, after the design changes performed on the ABLE Exoskeleton, the device continues to be safe for gait rehabilitation in people with SCI in a hospital setting. Moreover, the ABLEhipknee proved to be superior in terms of performance, with higher satisfaction scores as rated by participants and therapists. Overall, the results highlight the importance of co-creation to develop meaningful rehabilitation technology, engaging with people living with SCI and therapists as part of the team, to integrate their feedback into the design and better address their needs.
Trial registration: NCT05590065
Quantum Clock Synchronization Under Decoherence Effect
Authors: Noorbakhsh Bagher , Soltanmanesh Ali , Aslinezhad Mehdi 
Published: July 2023

Abstract
In this paper, we study a quantum clock synchronization for a three observer locating system, using entangled qubits and discuss the effect of the environmental noise on the phase of the system using decoherence theory. We will show that the error on the final result of the clock synchronization can be less than the current classical synchronizations, under suitable circumstances. Finally, with an appropriate modelling of the environment we can correct the error of the synchronization for a more accurate locating.
Decoding single and paired phonemes using 7T functional MRI
Authors: Vitória Maria Araújo , Fernandes Francisco Guerreiro , Boom Max van den , Ramsey Nick , Raemaekers Mathijs 
Published: July 2023

Abstract
Several studies have shown that mouth movements related to the pronunciation of individual phonemes are represented in the sensorimotor cortex. This would theoretically allow for brain computer interfaces that are capable of decoding continuous speech by training classifiers based on the activity in the sensorimotor cortex related to the production of individual phonemes. To address this, we investigated the decodability of trials with individual and paired phonemes (pronounced consecutively with one second interval) using activity in the sensorimotor cortex. Fifteen participants pronounced 3 different phonemes and 3 combinations of two of the same phonemes in a 7T functional MRI experiment. We confirmed that support vector machine (SVM) classification of single and paired phonemes was possible. Importantly, by combining classifiers trained on single phonemes, we were able to classify paired phonemes with an accuracy of 53% (33% chance level), demonstrating that activity of isolated phonemes is present and distinguishable in combined phonemes. A SVM searchlight analysis showed that the phoneme representations are widely distributed in the ventral sensorimotor cortex. These findings provide insights about the neural representations of single and paired phonemes. Furthermore, it supports the notion that speech BCI may be feasible based on machine learning algorithms trained on individual phonemes using intracranial electrode grids.
Occluded Face Recognition with a Novel Model Incorporating Block Diagonal Structure and Feature Consistency
Authors: Guo Junbo , Ma Xiang , Huo Shiteng 
Published: July 2023

Abstract
The nuclear norm matrix regression method is effective for continuous occlusion in face recognition. However, the existing method only considers low-rank structural information and ignores correlation between sample image representations. To effectively solve these issues, we propose a novel occluded face recognition model. The model enhances differences between categories using a strict 0–1 block diagonal structure. It also improves feature representation consistency within the same category with a local preservation term. The introduction of these two terms enables the model to obtain more discriminative representation coefficients. The experimental results on the Extended Yale B, AR, and LFW databases demonstrate that the proposed method has better recognition performance for occluded face recognition than comparative methods.
Assessing Pregnant Women's Exposure to Toxic Metals via Indoor Dust and Biological Monitoring in Urine
Authors: Moradnia Maryam , Darvishmotevalli Mohammad , Attar Hoessin Movahedian , Hajizadeh Yaghoub 
Published: July 2023

Abstract

This cross-sectional study investigated heavy metal concentrations in the indoor dust of pregnant women's homes in Isfahan City, Iran. It aimed to explore the relationship between metal concentrations in indoor dust and urine, as well as their correlation with the Air Quality Index (AQI) and relevant factors. A total of 80 indoor dust samples were collected from vacuum cleaners in different locations of Isfahan City over a three-month period (January to March) in 2020-2021. Additionally, 80 urine samples were obtained. Metal concentrations, including Chromium (Cr), Lead (Pb), Mercury (Hg), and Nickel (Ni), were analyzed using ICP-OES. The AQI value was derived from the maximum 8-hour daily PM2.5 levels provided by the Isfahan Department of Environment and calculated following EPA guidelines. Standard questionnaires captured information regarding residential location, house age, floor level, floor cover, smoking habits, distance living place and green spaces, use of air conditioner usage, type of window, window opening direction, and presence of houseplants. The mean concentrations of metals in indoor dust and urine samples were determined, with non-detectable levels of Hg. Significant differences in Pb concentration were observed across various living locations, house ages, and smoking habits (p-value < 0.05). Pb and Ni concentrations varied significantly based on floor levels and the direction of opening the window (p-value < 0.05). Differences were also noted in floor cover types and the presence of houseplants with respect to Cr and Pb concentrations in indoor dust (p-value < 0.05). Notably, a significant positive correlation existed between indoor dust Pb and AQI (r= 0.53, p <0.001). The high levels of Pb, Cr, and Ni in indoor dust highlight poor indoor air quality in the homes of the pregnant women studied. It is crucial to implement measures to raise awareness about the factors contributing to heavy metal pollution among communities.
Addressing sustainable urban flood risk: reviewing the role and scope of theoretical models and policies
Authors: Oneto Gabriele , Canepa Maria 
Published: July 2023

Abstract

Contemporary adaptation to urban flooding is based on risk management. Urban planners have both an active role in studying cities and a supportive role in helping to define policies. From 33 case studies, this review tries to give insight into how flood risk management fares in confronting international directives on disaster reduction and sustainability, by defining seven sustainability performance criteria. Most studies try to maximize the acceptability and feasibility of implementing solutions in cities (63.6%) and the revision of existing building codes and plans (51.5%), while fewer try to test existing urban practices for weak points (27.3%). Analyses do not fully consider urban habitats as holistic and complex systems, as citizen awareness (27.3%), costs (21.2%), and biodiversity (24.2%) are some of the least recurring and intersecting themes. The main findings should help planners define new lines of action on urban flooding and consider alternative aspects in their frameworks.