bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
An Analysis of Finnish Debtors Who Defaulted in 2014–2016 Because of Unsecured Credit Products
Authors: Majamaa K. , Lehtinen A.-R. 
Published: August 2022

AbstractConsumer credit has become an important element of the economy despite the negative effects: Over-indebtedness has wide-ranging repercussions affecting consumers and society as a whole. We analysed the debt judgements (N = 4,095) of Finnish district courts from 2014 to 2016, as well as administrative data on debtors. Our focus was on the position of consumers on the credit market and their consumption-related problem debts, namely instant loans, extensive consumer credit, and credit-card as well as distance-selling indebtedness. Regarding the four credit products, first we considered the average amount of outstanding debt and then we looked at the sociodemographic and socioeconomic characteristics of the debtors. The results revealed that the average outstanding debt (€) varied according to the credit product and that the highest average amount originated from extensive consumer credit. Instant loans and distance-selling indebtedness caused debt problems especially among low-income young adults, adverse selection seemingly being one factor behind instant-loan-related debts. Extensive consumer credit and credit-card indebtedness were behind debt judgements against older consumers with a good socioeconomic position and numerous previous loans. This is a moral-hazard situation whereby borrowers may have more information about their total amounts of debt than the lenders. We suggest that, in many cases, debt problems reflect an abundant supply of consumer credit, which seems to foster asymmetric information, the consumer’s position and competence to act in the credit market, as well as various overall risk factors.The findings highlight the need to strengthen consumers’ financial skills and for loan products that meet the needs of low-credit-rated consumers. Moreover, lenders should act responsibly in the current credit market.
Blind key-generation attribute-based encryption for general predicates
Authors: Abe Masayuki , Ambrona Miguel 
Published: August 2022

AbstractAttribute-based encryption (ABE) is a form of public-key encryption that allows fine-grained access control on encrypted data. Blind key-generation (BKG) attribute-based encryption (Rial,Designs, Codes and Cryptography 2016) is a variant in which the master authority issues secret keys without learning any information about the attributes associated to them. This extra functionality makes it an appealing building block for several applications. In this work, we extend the generic framework of ABE based on pair encodings (Attrapadung,Eurocrypt 2014) to support blind key-generation. In particular, we define two new notions of pair encodings that we coinBKG-compatibleandalgebraicpair encoding. We show that every encoding satisfies the former without loss of generality, whereas the latter is satisfied by all existing pair encodings from the literature. We then show how to enhance any ABE based on a BKG-compatible pair encoding to achieve honest-but-curious blind key-generation. In the case of algebraic encodings, our protocol admits a very efficient version, secure against malicious parties. The main advantage of our work is generality. Our protocol is designed over the recent and most advanced modular frameworks of ABE that can handle a rich variety of predicates.
Multivariate statistics explaining groundwater chemistry, Asyut, Egypt
Authors: Said Ibrahim , Abd-Elgawad Amr N. , Seleem El-Montser M. , Zeid Salah A. M. , Salman Salman A. 
Published: August 2022

AbstractGroundwater is an important source for domestic and irrigation purposes in Asyut area. Water quality varied widely due to complex geochemical processes and pollution sources. Understanding the processes controlling groundwater chemistry is necessary to overcome related problems. Multivariate statistics revealed that groundwater is affected by anthropogenic recharge (agricultural/organic pollution), mineralization, and redox processes. Contributions from natural vs. anthropogenic sources explain the variance in hydrochemical data. Shallow wells are relatively higher in bicarbonate content due to oxidation of organic pollutants. Shallow wells anomaly high with iron and organically polluted are most probably owing to pipe corrosion in residential areas. N fertilization impact on natural weathering has been demonstrated. Groundwater is getting more mineralized toward desert fringes due to lithological and hydrogeological characteristics under unconfined conditions. Evaporation factor enhances groundwater salinity under aridity. Fe and Mn contents are relatively higher as the redox potential is getting more reducing. The current study will help in building suitable management plan to protect the aquifer.
Surface roughness and its structural orientation caused by internal microstructural changes in mechanically stressed copper conductors
Authors: Baron Philipp , Lenz Philipp , Schomer Maria , Koch Klaus Peter , Wittmann Armin , Fischer Georg 
Published: August 2022

AbstractIn this paper, the mechanical damage behavior is investigated based on the characteristic roughness on the surface and the orientation of superficial structures. The main goal is to explore the surface roughness on mechanically loaded copper conductors as a lifetime indicator. For this purpose, copper conductors are mechanically stressed in accordance with EN 50,396 and then examined metallographically and microscopically. The microstructure examination shows that the roughness is caused by material extrusion and cracks due to work hardening in the surface area. Using confocal microscopy, it is shown for the first time that significant formation of surface roughness takes place over the service life of copper conductors. The roughness increases monotonically, but not linearly with number of cycles, due to internal microstructural processes and can be divided into three sections. First inspections of the conductor surface over lifetime show a correlation between the intensity of structures orientated 45° to the loading direction and the roughness. This phenomenon, already known from microscopic slip lines, is thus also evident in macroscopic roughness formation and is well founded by the research theory on material extrusion along dislocation lines. In summary, a lifetime determination is possible based on its developing roughness which enables the utilization as a sensor element.
Graphical abstract
Effect of Cu Additions on Scale Structure and Descaling Efficiency of Low C Steel Reheated in a Combustion Gas Atmosphere
Authors: Osei Richard , Lekakh Simon , O’Malley Ronald 
Published: August 2022

AbstractModern EAF steelmaking employs scrap as its primary source of raw material. Different sources of scrap have varying levels of residuals, which can negatively influence product properties, performance, and surface quality. The presence of some residuals, such as Cu and Ni in controlled quantities, can also positively impact steel performance for some applications. It is also well known that interactions between residuals and alloying elements in steel can modify the structure of scale formed during slab reheating prior to hot rolling. These changes in the scale structure can influence scale removability. In this study, the effect of varying Cu concentrations in a low alloyed Mn and Si containing steel was examined to investigate its impact on scale removability. Laboratory studies were performed with simulated reheating and descaling conditions that mimic the conditions used in industrial practices. The scale structure that formed during reheating in the combustion atmosphere was investigated using SEM/EDX analysis. A special laboratory water jet descaling device was used to evaluate scale removability at three different hydraulic impact factors. The results showed that Cu at different levels significantly modified scale structure that formed, particularly the internal scale layers, which affected scale removability at different applied descaling impact factors. The effects of Cu level and descaling impact factor on scale removability is discussed.
Successful patenting—not only how, but with whom: the importance of patent attorneys
Authors: Klincewicz Krzysztof , Szumiał Szymon 
Published: August 2022

AbstractThe role of patent attorneys is usually overlooked in empirical analyses of patents. Using a large dataset of Polish patent applications, 2006–2015, and the econometric model of logistic regression with interactions, the article identifies factors contributing to the successful patenting outcomes. Patents are more likely to be granted for applications filed by multiple applicants, particularly if a scientific organization is involved. Industry, region and decisions to apply for international protection were found as relevant variables affecting the patent grants. The involvement of attorneys was found to be a strong predictor of the outcome, and the study considered multiple variables characterizing the prior experience of attorneys, including their performance, effectiveness, work with scientific or business clients and support for patent applications that were also filed for international protection. The findings offer novel insights into sources of patenting success, indicating that it’s not only important how the patent applications are drafted and what their detailed contents are, but also who exactly prepares them.
Debating as a Deliberative Instrument in Educational Practice
Authors: Graff Joris 
Published: August 2022

AbstractIn recent decades, deliberation about public issues has become a central theme in citizenship education. In line with an increasing philosophical and political appreciation of the importance of deliberation within democracy, schools, as training grounds for democratic citizenship, should foster high-level deliberative skills. However, when this insight is translated into practical formats, these formats suffer from a number of shortcomings. Specifically, they can be criticised on philosophical grounds for advantaging select societal groups, and on empirical grounds for facilitating groupthink mechanisms. This paper aims to address these shortcomings by suggesting a role for debating techniques within deliberative education. Because debating stimulates the contestation of diverse opinions, it may counteract the silencing of minority viewpoints and the proliferation of groupthink. At the same time, debating-based formats must be closely regulated in order to not imperil compromise formation. A concrete format is presented that balances these considerations and may therefore contribute to more effective deliberation in the classroom.
Complementary and Integrative Medicine for Neurocognitive Disorders and Caregiver Health
Authors: Nguyen Sarah A. , Oughli Hanadi Ajam , Lavretsky Helen 
Published: August 2022

Abstract

Purpose of Review

Integrative medicine is the practice of combining conventional medical treatments with “alternative” or “complementary” therapies. Integrative psychiatry is a holistic, person-centered approach to neuropsychiatric disorders that emphasizes a person’s physical, emotional, interpersonal, behavioral, nutritional, environmental, and spiritual dimensions to achieve well-being. Older adults are more prone to physical injury, interpersonal loss, chronic illnesses, and physical and cognitive decline that can manifest as anxiety, depression, with functional decline and inability to care for self. Additionally, stress of caring for older adults with dementia can adversely affect caregivers’ health. Although integrative approaches are perceived as safer and less stigmatizing, it is important to understand the risks and benefits of such therapies for older adults with neurocognitive disorders and their caregivers.

Recent Findings

Here, we summarize the results of the recent clinical trials and meta-analyses that provide evidence for integrative approaches to treating older adults with cognitive disorders and their caregivers which include the use of diet and supplements, and mind–body therapies.

Summary

Dietary and mind-body therapies have become increasingly popular and show the strongest evidence of effectiveness for cognitive disorders and caregiver stress. Vitamins and supplements are the most popular integrative intervention, but there is mixed evidence supporting their use and the concern for herb (supplement)-drug interactions. While there is increasing popularity of integrative treatments, information to guide clinicians providing care for older adults remains limited, with variable scientific rigor of the available RCTs for a large number of commonly used integrative interventions particularly for cognitive disorders and caregiver stress and well-being.
Associations between pre-COVID-19 physical activity profiles and mental wellbeing and quality of life during COVID-19 lockdown among adults
Authors: Dadswell Kara , Bourke Matthew , Maple Jaimie-Lee , Craike Melinda 
Published: August 2022

AbstractThe COVID-19 pandemic has been detrimental to the physical and mental health and wellbeing of people across the globe. Regular physical activity has consistently demonstrated an array of health benefits, but the impact of regular physical activity habits pre-pandemic on health and wellbeing during the pandemic is largely unknown. The purpose of this study was to identify distinct pre-COVID-19 lockdown physical activity profiles [i.e., walking, leisure-time moderate-vigorous physical activity (MVPA), domestic MVPA and muscle strengthening exercise] and assess whether these profiles were associated with mental wellbeing and quality of life during COVID-19 lockdown. A total of 442 adults (Mage = 43.97 ± 13.85; 75.6% female) from Melbourne, Australia completed an online questionnaire measuring pre-COVID-19 physical activity, including walking habits, leisure-time MVPA, domestic MVPA, and muscle strengthening exercise – and completed measures of mental wellbeing and health related quality of life. Latent profile analysis identified five distinct profiles that differed in terms of levels of walking, leisure-time MVPA, domestic MVPA and muscle strengthening exercise. Based on the observed pre-COVID-19 lockdown profiles, it appears that high levels of MVPA and muscle strengthening exercise may serve as a protective factor against the potential negative impact of a global pandemic lockdown on mental wellbeing and quality of life.
Personalised federated learning framework for damage detection in structural health monitoring
Authors: Anaissi Ali , Suleiman Basem , Alyassine Widad 
Published: August 2022

AbstractData-driven machine learning models, compared to numerical models, demonstrated promising improvements in detecting damage in structural health monitoring (SHM) applications. In such approaches, sensors’ data are used to train a model either in a centralized model (server) or locally inside each sensor unit node (client). The centralized learning model often leads to computing and privacy issues such as wireless transmission costs and data-sensitive vulnerability, especially in real-time settings. The decentralized model also poses different challenges such as feature correlations and relationships loss in decentralized learning settings. To handle the shortcomings of both models, we propose a new Personalized federated learning (FL) model augmented with tensor data fusion to learn and detect damage in SHM. Our approach employs FL which enables the central machine learning model to gain experience from diverse datasets located at different sensor locations. Furthermore, our proposed model addresses the problems associated non-i.i.d. data by employing the Moreau envelopes as a regularized loss function in the learning process of client’s models. Our methods help in decoupling the client models from the central one which improves personalized in FL. Our experimental evaluation on real structural datasets demonstrates promising damage detection accuracy without the need to transmit the actual data to the centralized learning model. The results also show that the data correlations and relationships from all participating sensors are preserved.
Vibration-based and computer vision-aided nondestructive health condition evaluation of rail track structures
Authors: Wang Shaohua , Zheng Hao , Tang Lihua , Li Zhaoyu , Zhao Renda , Lu Yuqian , Aw Kean C. 
Published: August 2022

AbstractIn railway engineering, monitoring the health condition of rail track structures is crucial to prevent abnormal vibration issues of the wheel–rail system. To address the problem of low efficiency of traditional nondestructive testing methods, this work investigates the feasibility of the computer vision-aided health condition monitoring approach for track structures based on vibration signals. The proposed method eliminates the tedious and complicated data pre-processing including signal mapping and noise reduction, which can achieve robust signal description using numerous redundant features. First, the method converts the raw wheel–rail vibration signals directly into two-dimensional grayscale images, followed by image feature extraction using the FAST-Unoriented-SIFT algorithm. Subsequently, Visual Bag-of-Words (VBoW) model is established based on the image features, where the optimal parameter selection analysis is implemented based on fourfold cross-validation by considering both recognition accuracy and stability. Finally, the Euclidean distance between word frequency vectors of testing set and the codebook vectors of training set is compared to recognize the health condition of track structures. For the three health conditions of track structures analyzed in this paper, the overall recognition rate could reach 96.7%. The results demonstrate that the proposed method performs higher recognition accuracy and lower bias with strong time-varying and random vibration signals, which has promising application prospect in early-stage structural defect detection.
Proliferative effects of nanobubbles on fibroblasts
Authors: Heo Hansol , Park Junseon , Lee Jeong II , Kim Jungho , Park Joong Yull , Kim Jong-Min 
Published: August 2022

AbstractIn recent years, the potential of nanobubbles (NBs) for biological activation has been actively investigated. In this study, we investigated the proliferative effects of nitrogen NBs (N-NBs) on fibroblast cells using cell assays with image analysis and flow cytometry. A high concentration of N-NBs (more than 4 × 108 NBs/mL) was generated in Dulbecco’s modified Eagle’s medium (DMEM) using a gas–liquid mixing method. In image analysis, the cells were counted and compared, which showed an 11% increase in cell number in the culture medium with N-NBs. However, in two further cell cytometry analyses, the effect of nanobubbles on cell division was found to be insignificant (approximately 2%); as there is insufficient evidence that N-NB is involved in cell division mechanism, further studies are needed to determine whether NB affects other cellular mechanisms such as apoptosis. This study presents the first successful attempt of directly generating and quantifying N-NBs in a culture medium for cell culture. The findings suggest that the N-NBs in the culture medium can potentially facilitate cell proliferation.
Optimizing Fe0/Ni0/alginate beads as a stable and recoverable catalyst for removing highly toxic water contaminants: full-factorial design
Authors: Radwan E. K. , El-Wakeel S. T. , Abdel-Wahed M. S. , Gad-Allah T. A. 
Published: August 2022

AbstractPollution by highly toxic contaminants poses a great threat to the aquatic environment and human life. Bimetallic materials have been proven to be efficient for the removal of such contaminants. In this study, the bimetallic Fe0/Ni0/alginate beads have been prepared using solvothermal technique followed by polymerization of alginate. Full-factorial design has been utilized to optimize the preparation conditions including the weight ratios of Fe and Ni, and time of the solvothermal process. The bimetal made from equal weights of Ni and Fe metals along with alginate has shown the best efficiency for the removal of 2,4,6-trichlorophenol (2,4,6-TCP, ~ 70%) as a model organic pollutant under acidic conditions (pH = 2) with minor contribution of alginate component in the removal process. Adsorption followed by reduction has been defined as the removal mechanism using GC/MS/MS chromatography in the case of 2,4,6-TCP. A mathematical model was established to describe the 2,4,6-TCP removal by the optimally prepared material. Differently, Pb2+ ions were removed predominantly by the alginate with minor effect of the bimetal (max. removal = 96.91% at pH 5 and after 2 h contact time). Accordingly, it was difficult to describe this process by a mathematical model. However, in both cases, the optimally prepared material has exhibited superior stability and reusability rather than the neat Fe0/Ni0 bimetal under the same experimental conditions. To sum up, the designed bimetallic Fe0/Ni0/alginate beads can be considered as an efficient catalyst for the removal of highly toxic pollutants from aqueous media.
Interpolation-based, minimum-time piecewise constant control of linear continuous-time SISO systems
Authors: D’Alfonso Luigi , Fedele Giuseppe , Pugliese Paolo , Vecchio Antonia 
Published: August 2022

AbstractWe present a novel approach to the system inversion problem for linear, scalar (i.e. single-input, single-output, or SISO) plants. The problem is formulated as a constrained optimization program, whose objective function is the transition time between the initial and the final values of the system’s output, and the constraints are (i) a threshold on the input intensity and (ii) the requirement that the system’s output interpolates a given set of points. The system’s input is assumed to be a piecewise constant signal. It is formally proved that, in this frame, the input intensity is a decreasing function of the transition time. This result lets us to propose an algorithm that, by a bisection search, finds the optimal transition time for the given constraints. The algorithm is purely algebraic, and it does not require the system to be minimum phase or nonhyperbolic. It can deal with time-varying systems too, although in this case it has to be viewed as a heuristic technique, and it can be used as well in a model-free approach. Numerical simulations are reported that illustrate its performance. Finally, an application to a mobile robotics problem is presented, where, using a linearizing pre-controller, we show that the proposed approach can be applied also to nonlinear problems.