bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Neurological emergency at the COVID-19 pandemic: report from a referral hospital in Eastern Piedmont, Italy
Authors: Varrasi Claudia , Fleetwood Thomas , De Marchi Fabiola , Vecchio Domizia , Virgilio Eleonora , Castello Luigi Mario , Avanzi Gian Carlo , Sainaghi Pier Paolo , Mazzini Letizia , Cantello Roberto 
Published: January 2022

Abstract
Background
The pandemic implied dramatic changes in public health assets. In Italy, some Stroke Units were transformed into sub-intensive COVID-19 Units, making the management of neurological patients demanding. We described how the flow of neurological emergencies was affected by the pandemic impact.

Methods
We analyzed accesses to the Emergency Department (ED) of the “Maggiore della Carità” Hospital, Piedmont, Italy, during a period of 8 months (COVID time; March to May 2020 and October 2020 to February 2021) and analyzed the admissions to the Neurology Unit and the underlying diagnosis. We also evaluated potential changes in the treatment of acute ischemic stroke in the same period. These variables were compared with two equivalent periods of time (2019–2020; 2018–2019).

Results
During the COVID time, there was a clear-cut reduction of the total ED accesses compared to NoCOVID times. However, admissions for acute neurological conditions showed a mild but non-significant decrease (6.3%vs.7.3%). The same applied to acute ischemic stroke, which represented the most common condition (47.7%). The proportion of patients who underwent emergent reperfusion therapies remained unchanged. Furthermore, no difference was found in door-to-needle and door-to-groin intervals between COVID time and NoCOVID times. On the contrary, the onset-to-door interval was significantly longer during the COVID time (p value: 0.001).

Discussion
While the percentage of admissions following an ED access grew dramatically, those to the Neurology Unit showed overall only a slight non-significant decrease. This finding implicitly reflects the serious and urgent nature of many neurological diseases, compelling people to access EDs at any time.
Regional now- and forecasting for data reported with delay: toward surveillance of COVID-19 infections
Authors: De Nicola Giacomo , Schneble Marc , Kauermann Göran , Berger Ursula 
Published: January 2022

AbstractGovernments around the world continue to act to contain and mitigate the spread of COVID-19. The rapidly evolving situation compels officials and executives to continuously adapt policies and social distancing measures depending on the current state of the spread of the disease. In this context, it is crucial for policymakers to have a firm grasp on what the current state of the pandemic is, and to envision how the number of infections is going to evolve over the next days. However, as in many other situations involving compulsory registration of sensitive data, cases are reported with delay to a central register, with this delay deferring an up-to-date view of the state of things. We provide a stable tool for monitoring current infection levels as well as predicting infection numbers in the immediate future at the regional level. We accomplish this through nowcasting of cases that have not yet been reported as well as through predictions of future infections. We apply our model to German data, for which our focus lies in predicting and explain infectious behavior by district.
The scar: the wind in the perfect storm—insights into the mysterious living tissue originating ventricular arrhythmias
Authors: Pandozi C. , Mariani Marco Valerio , Chimenti C. , Maestrini V. , Filomena D. , Magnocavallo M. , Straito M. , Piro A. , Russo M. , Galeazzi M. , Ficili S. , Colivicchi F. , Severino P. , Mancone M. , Fedele F. , Lavalle C. 
Published: January 2022

Abstract

Background

Arrhythmic death is very common among patients with structural heart disease, and it is estimated that in European countries, 1 per 1000 inhabitants yearly dies for sudden cardiac death (SCD), mainly as a result of ventricular arrhythmias (VA). The scar is the result of cardiac remodelling process that occurs in several cardiomyopathies, both ischemic and non-ischemic, and is considered the perfect substrate for re-entrant and non-re-entrant arrhythmias.

Methods
Our aim was to review published evidence on the histological and electrophysiological properties of myocardial scar and to review the central role of cardiac magnetic resonance (CMR) in assessing ventricular arrhythmias substrate and its potential implication in risk stratification of SCD.

Results
Scarring process affects both structural and electrical myocardial properties and paves the background for enhanced arrhythmogenicity. Non-uniform anisotropic conduction, gap junctions remodelling, source to sink mismatch and refractoriness dispersion are some of the underlining mechanisms contributing to arrhythmic potential of the scar. All these mechanisms lead to the initiation and maintenance of VA. CMR has a crucial role in the evaluation of patients suffering from VA, as it is considered the gold standard imaging test for scar characterization. Mounting evidences support the use of CMR not only for the definition of gross scar features, as size, localization and transmurality, but also for the identification of possible conducting channels suitable of discrete ablation. Moreover, several studies call out the CMR-based scar characterization as a stratification tool useful in selecting patients at risk of SCD and amenable to implantable cardioverter-defibrillator (ICD) implantation.

Conclusions
Scar represents the substrate of ventricular arrhythmias. CMR, defining scar presence and its features, may be a useful tool for guiding ablation procedures and for identifying patients at risk of SCD amenable to ICD therapy.
Take Me to (the Empty) Church? Social Networks, Loneliness and Religious Attendance in Young Polish Adults During the COVID-19 Pandemic
Authors: Okruszek Ł. , Piejka A. , Żurek K. 
Published: January 2022

AbstractA significant body of research supports the relationship between religious attendance, objective and subjective social networks characteristics, and mental well-being. This trajectory may be particularly important in the wake of the COVID-19 crisis. Thus, the current study examined the relationship between religious attendance, social network characteristics, loneliness, and mental well-being in a sample of 564 young adults (aged 18–35 years) soon after the first COVID-19-related restrictions were imposed in Poland. In line with previous findings, both frequent (FAs) and infrequent religious attenders (IAs) reported more people in their social networks compared to non-attenders (NAs). Further analysis revealed full mediation of religious attendance (FAs vs. NAs) via social network size on loneliness and mental well-being. This pattern of results was still observed after the exclusion of worship-based affiliates from the social network score. A follow-up survey carried out one year later (N = 94) showed that all three groups of participants (FAs, IAs, and NAs) reported increased loneliness and decreased mental well-being. Taken together, these findings show that the influence of religious attendance on social functioning cannot be attributed solely to congregational relationships.
Task complementarity in academic work: a study of the relationship between research, education and third mission tasks among university professors
Authors: Reymert Ingvild , Thune Taran 
Published: January 2022

AbstractProfessors have multiple responsibilities and tasks. They should contribute to research, teaching and ‘third mission’ activities such as commercialisation of scientific knowledge and industry collaboration. These tasks are expected to be complementary and that synergies between different tasks can lead to positive outcomes. But are professors’ work tasks really complementary or are they rather characterised by trade-offs, and what are the implications of having multiple tasks for academic performance? This study of tenured academic staff in Norwegian universities, observe that there are many positive associations between academic tasks. The data supports the assumption that student supervision is positive for research performance, as is research collaboration with public and private organisations. We also find a positive association between student supervision and participation in third mission activities, but only with research collaboration and not commercialisation activities. The data also indicates that the combined effect of participation in third mission and teaching activities is neither negative nor positive for research performance, and as such we do not find indications that having multiple task is negative for work performance in the form of research output.
Hierarchical sparse Cholesky decomposition with applications to high-dimensional spatio-temporal filtering
Authors: Jurek Marcin , Katzfuss Matthias 
Published: January 2022

AbstractSpatial statistics often involves Cholesky decomposition of covariance matrices. To ensure scalability to high dimensions, several recent approximations have assumed a sparse Cholesky factor of the precision matrix. We propose a hierarchical Vecchia approximation, whose conditional-independence assumptions imply sparsity in the Cholesky factors of both the precision and the covariance matrix. This remarkable property is crucial for applications to high-dimensional spatiotemporal filtering. We present a fast and simple algorithm to compute our hierarchical Vecchia approximation, and we provide extensions to nonlinear data assimilation with non-Gaussian data based on the Laplace approximation. In several numerical comparisons, including a filtering analysis of satellite data, our methods strongly outperformed alternative approaches.
COVID-19 vaccine literacy in patients with systemic autoimmune diseases
Authors: Correa-Rodríguez María , Rueda-Medina Blanca , Callejas-Rubio José-Luis , Ríos-Fernández Raquel , de la Hera-Fernández Javier , Ortego-Centeno Norberto 
Published: January 2022

AbstractCOVID-19 related infodemic is a threat to the successful COVID-19 vaccination campaigns. This might be especially apparent for patients with autoimmune diseases since there is no data available about the balance between benefits and risks of the newly developed COVID-19 vaccines in this population. We aim (i) to evaluate vaccine literacy skills in a population of patients with systemic autoimmune diseases, (ii) to examine the potential associations between vaccine literacy skills and sociodemographic characteristics and (iii) to analyze the relationships between attitudes, perceptions and beliefs about current vaccinations and vaccine literacy skills and sociodemographic characteristics. A cross-sectional study was conducted among 319 patients with systemic autoimmune diseases (92% females; 49.5% of patients in the 31–50 years age category). The vaccine literacy levels were determined using the Health Literacy about Vaccination in adulthood in Italian (HLVa-IT). Sociodemographic characteristics including gender, age, country and area of residence, civil status, socioeconomic status, educational attainment and occupational status were evaluated. The mean vaccine literacy functional and interactive-critical scores were 2.59 ± 0.74 and 3.07 ± 0.60, respectively. The vaccine literacy interactive-critical score was higher in females than in males (p = 0.048). Interactive-critical scores were associated with the area of residence, civil status and socioeconomic status, with the highest score in urban area of ≥ 100.000 inhabitants (p = 0.045), in widow patients (p = 0.023) and in patients with high socioeconomic status (p = 0.018). Significant differences were observed between the different education levels, for both the functional and the interactive-critical scores (p = 0.002 and p < 0.001, respectively), the highest score was observed in patients who completed a university degree. The level of vaccine literacy for functional and interactive-critical scales were medium. Area of residence, civil status and socioeconomic status represented determinants of vaccine literacy interactive-critical scale. Educational attainment also contributes to vaccine literacy functional scale. Insight into these factors is required to ensure an optimal vaccine literacy level in patients with autoimmune diseases.
School-related Subjective Well-being of Children with and without Special Educational Needs in Inclusive Classrooms
Authors: Goldan Janka , Nusser Lena , Gebel Michael 
Published: January 2022

AbstractGiven the importance of schools as socializing institutions, a key dimension of children’s subjective well-being (SWB) is their perception of school-related aspects. This study complements previous literature on various determinants of children’s SWB by focusing on students with special educational needs (SEN). Due to academic challenges, stigmatization, and exclusion, they are at risk of experiencing reduced SWB. With the implementation of inclusive education around the globe, students with SEN are more frequently enrolled in regular schools, and a question arises regarding how students with SEN assess their school-related SWB in inclusive settings. Drawing on longitudinal data from the National Educational Panel Study in Germany (NEPS) we systematically investigate the effect of the SEN status on various facets of school-related SWB measured in Grade 4 of primary school. Applying a propensity score matching approach, we contrast children with SEN status to children without SEN status who are comparable in a rich set of observed confounding variables. We find that at the end of primary school, students with SEN report being lesssatisfied with life in general, being lesssatisfied with schooland theirfriendsthan their comparable counterpart without SEN. Moreover, they experience moretirednessand feelings ofloneliness, and show lower levels oflearning enjoymentandtask mastering. The potential mechanisms leading to lower school-related SWB are discussed.
Die Rolle der B-Lymphozyten bei Patient*innen mit systemischem Lupus erythematodes
Authors: Zenz Sabine , Brezinsek Hans-Peter 
Published: January 2022

ZusammenfassungDer systemische Lupus erythematodes (SLE) ist eine Autoimmunerkrankung, die durch chronisch-rezidivierende Verläufe und ein breites Spektrum an klinischen Erscheinungsbildern gekennzeichnet ist. Pathophysiologisch wird dem B‑Lymphozyten, aufgrund seiner überschießenden Reaktion mit gestörter Autoantikörperproduktion, eine tragende Rolle in der Auslösung und der Aufrechterhaltung der Erkrankung zugeschrieben. Aufgrund unseres besseren Verständnisses über diese Krankheit und einer präziseren Labordiagnostik wurden 2019 die ACR(American College of Rheumatology)/EULAR(European Alliance of Associations for Rheumatology)-Klassifikationskriterien überarbeitet, um auch in der Frühphase des SLE Patient*innen rechtzeitig zu erkennen. Im Gegensatz zum diagnostischen Vorgehen sind neue Therapieansätze bisher nur begrenzt erfolgreich. Unsere Arbeitsgruppe beschäftigt sich intensiv mit der Charakterisierung der B‑Zell-Subpopulationen, ihrer Aktivität bei SLE sowie dem Ansprechen auf die medikamentöse Therapie. Ein erster Schritt war es, die verschiedenen B‑Zell-Subpopulationen im peripheren Blut (naive B‑Zellen, Prä- und Post-switch-B-Zellen, Gedächtnis-B-Zellen und Plasmablasten [Vorstufe von der Plasmazelle]) bei Patient*innen mit niedriger Krankheitsaktivität zu identifizieren und eine mögliche Korrelation zum weiteren Krankheitsverlauf des SLE zu eruieren. Es zeigte sich bei den Analysen, dass Patient*innen, die einen hohen Anteil an naiven B‑Zellen im Blut aufwiesen, nach 3 Jahren einen moderaten bis hochaktiven SLE hatten. Die Konsequenz daraus wäre, dass das therapeutische Ziel beim SLE neben der Induktion einer Remission bzw. einer niedrigen Erkrankungsaktivität auch die Verminderung der naiven B‑Zell-Population sein sollte. Dies müsste in einer prospektiven Studie aber noch bestätigt werden.
An integrated gasification plant for electric power generation from wet biomass: toward a sustainable production in the olive oil industry
Authors: Aguado Roque , Vera David , Jurado Francisco , Beltrán Gabriel 
Published: January 2022

Abstract
This research work proposes an integrated gasification plant for simultaneous generation of renewable electricity and drying of olive pomace, a thick sludge with a moisture content close to 60–70% (wet basis), which constitutes by far the most abundant by-product in the Spanish olive oil industry. Due to its massive rate of production and increasing associated transportation costs, olive pomace management currently represents a substantial expense for oil mills. The integrated gasification plant, which can be installed directly at oil mills, consists of a pelletizer, a downdraft gasifier under autothermal operation fueled with dried olive pomace pellets, a producer gas cooling and cleaning unit and a microturbine as power generation unit. The wet olive pomace continuously produced in oil mills is eventually dried in a co-current flow rotary drum dryer with the hot exhaust gases leaving the microturbine at temperatures close to 300 °C, allowing a self-sufficient operation of the integrated gasification plant. The integrated gasification plant was modeled using Aspen Plus® process simulator. The developed model was validated against experimental and simulation results of relevant works. Under optimum operating conditions, the electrical efficiency of the proposed plant is 18.8%, while the additional drying stage allows achieving an overall efficiency of 51.0%. Electricity consumption by the pelletizer and ancillary equipment represents 10–20% of the net electric power generation from the microturbine. However, since the integrated gasification plant is fueled with an inexpensive by-product of olive oil production that is massively produced on-site, the plant performance parameters are remarkably satisfactory.
Determinants of e-waste composition in the EU28 + 2 countries: a panel quantile regression evidence of the STIRPAT model
Authors: Boubellouta B. , Kusch-Brandt S. 
Published: January 2022

AbstractPrevious studies have examined the relationship between total e-waste generation and its determinants. However, e-waste categories have not received appropriate attention, and thus important information is missing for policymakers. This paper advances the state of knowledge by studying e-waste categories individually. Statistical data of e-waste in the EU28 + 2 countries over the period 2000–2015 is disaggregated into single categories, namely temperature exchange equipment, screens and monitors, lamps, large equipment, small equipment, and small IT and telecommunication equipment. To examine the main driving forces of e-waste in each category, the STIRPAT model (Stochastic Impacts by Regression on Population, Affluence, and Technology) and the environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) hypothesis are applied, using panel quantile regression as main method and pooled OLS to control robustness of findings. Results show that population, renewable energy consumption, trade openness, and urbanization are positively correlated with all e-waste categories. Renewable energy exploitation is a major e-waste driver of large and small equipment, screens and monitors, and small IT. Interestingly, an inverted U-shaped relationship between gross domestic product (GDP) per capita and the quantity of e-waste was found across all e-waste categories for most regressions when using the quantile regression method (28 out of 30 quantiles), and for all regressions when using the pooled OLS method. This confirms the EKC hypothesis and indicates that e-waste of all categories increases with GDP up to a certain level (turning point) but then decreases when GDP continues to grow.
Plus/minus p-adic L-functions for $$\mathrm {GL}_{2n}$$
Authors: Rockwood Rob 
Published: January 2022

AbstractWe generalise Pollack’s construction of plus/minus L-functions to certain cuspidal automorphic representations of $$\mathrm {GL_{2n}}$$

GL

2
n

using the p-adic L-functions constructed in work of Barrera Salazar et al. (On p-adic l-functions for $$\text {GL}_{2n}$$

GL

2
n

in finite slope shalika families, 2021). We use these to prove that the complex L-functions of such representations vanish at at most finitely many twists by characters of p-power conductor.
A state of health estimation method for electric vehicle Li-ion batteries using GA-PSO-SVR
Authors: Zhi Yue , Wang Heqi , Wang Liang 
Published: January 2022

AbstractState of health (SOH) is the ratio of the currently available maximum capacity of the battery to the rated capacity. It is an important index to describe the degradation state of a pure electric vehicle battery and has an important reference value in evaluating the health level of the retired battery and estimating the driving range. In this study, the random forest algorithm is first used to find the most important health factors to lithium-ion batteries based on the dataset released by National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). Then the support vector regression (SVR) algorithm is developed to predict the SOH of a lithium-ion battery. The genetic algorithm-particle swarm optimization (GA-PSO) algorithm is brought forward to optimize the parameter values of the SVR, which could improve the estimation accuracy and convergence speed. The proposed SOH estimation method is applied to four batteries and gets a root mean square error (RMSE) of 0.40% and an average absolute percentage error (MAPE) of 0.56%. In addition, the method is also compared with genetic algorithm-support vector regression (GA-SVR) and particle swarm optimization-support vector regression (PSO-SVR), respectively. The results show that (i) compared with the PSO-SVR method, the proposed method can decrease the average RMSE by 0.10%, and the average MAPE by 0.17%; (ii) compared with the GA-PSO method, number of iterations under the proposed method can be reduced by 7 generations.
Model-Based Radiation-Free Assessment of Scoliosis: A Principle Validation Study
Authors: Roy Susmita , Grünwald Alexander T. D. , Lampe Renée 
Published: January 2022

Abstract
Purpose
Adolescent scoliosis is one of the common pediatric spinal diseases which has a high risk of progression due to the rapid growth of the skeleton during the growing stage therefore needs regular clinical monitoring including X-rays. Because X-rays could lead to ionizing radiation-related health problems, an ionizing radiation-free, non-invasive method is presented here to estimate the degree of scoliosis and to potentially support the medical assessment.

Methods
The radiation-free body scanner provides a 3D surface scan of the torso. A basic 3D structure of the human ribcage and vertebral column was modeled and simulated with computer-aided design software and finite element method calculation. For comparison with X-rays, courses of vertebral columns derived from 3D torso images and 3D models were analyzed with respect to their apex positions and angles.

Results
The methods show good results in the estimation of the apex positions of scoliosis. Strong correlations (R = 0.8924) were found between the apex and Cobb angle from X-rays. Similar correlations (R = 0.8087) was obtained between the apex angles extracted from X-rays and the combination of torso scan images with 3D model simulations. Promising agreement was obtained between the spinal trajectories extracted from X-ray and 3D torso images.

Conclusions
Very strong correlations suggest that the apex angle could potentially be used for scoliosis assessment in follow-up examinations in complement to the Cobb angle. However, further improvements of the methods and tests on a larger number of data set are necessary before their introduction into the clinical application.