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Despite technological and immunological innovations, living-donor liver transplant (LDLT) recipients still face substantial risk of postoperative complications. Sarcopenia is being recognized more and more as a biomarker that correlates with poor outcomes in surgical patients. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the relationship between sarcopenia and significant surgical complications in LDLT recipients. This retrospective review included patients who had received LDLT at our institute from 2005 to 2017. Sarcopenia was assessed using the psoas muscle index (PMI) in cross-sectional images. ROC curve analysis was used to determine the ability of PMI to predict postoperative complications. Correlations between major postoperative complications and sarcopenia were evaluated using regression analysis. A total of 271 LDLT recipients were included. No significant differences were found between PMI and major postoperative complications in male patients. Female recipients with major postoperative complications had significantly lower mean PMI values (P = 0.028), and the PMI cut-off value was 2.63 cm2/m2. Postoperative massive pleural effusion requiring pigtail drainage occurred more frequently in the sarcopenia group than in the non-sarcopenia group (P = 0.003). 1-, 3-, 5- and 10-year overall survival rates in female were significantly poorer in the sarcopenia group (n = 14) compared with the non-sarcopenia group (n = 108), at 92.9% versus 97.2%, 85.7% versus 95.4%, 85.7% versus 92.5% and 70.1 versus 82.0%, respectively (P = 0.041) and 94.6%, 89.9%, 85.9% and 78.5% in male patients. Sarcopenia is associated with a significantly higher risk of major postoperative complications in females. PMI and sarcopenia together are predictive of major postoperative complications and survival rates in female LDLT recipients.

Titanium and its alloys are widely used in different biomaterial applications due to their remarkable mechanical properties and bio-inertness. However, titanium-based materials still face some challenges, with an emphasis on hemocompatibility. Blood-contacting devices such as stents, heart valves, and circulatory devices are prone to thrombus formation, restenosis, and inflammation due to inappropriate blood–implant surface interactions. After implantation, when blood encounters these implant surfaces, a series of reactions takes place, such as protein adsorption, platelet adhesion and activation, and white blood cell complex formation as a defense mechanism. Currently, patients are prescribed anticoagulant drugs to prevent blood clotting, but these drugs can weaken their immune system and cause profound bleeding during injury. Extensive research has been done to modify the surface properties of titanium to enhance its hemocompatibility. Results have shown that the modification of surface morphology, roughness, and chemistry has been effective in reducing thrombus formation. The main focus of this review is to analyze and understand the different modification techniques on titanium-based surfaces to enhance hemocompatibility and, consequently, recognize the unresolved challenges and propose scopes for future research., This manuscript aims to explore the hemocompatibility of titanium surfaces for achieving enhanced implant life. The surface treatment techniques investigated have shown that different surface properties can be tuned to improve hemocompatibility.

Coordinating breast cancer treatment is a complex task that can overwhelm patients and their support networks. Though the Cancer Patient Navigator (CPN) program in Nova Scotia (NS) provides professional assistance to patients, certain groups of patients may still face barriers to accessing its services. Employing interviews and a modified Delphi approach with CPN participants, this study sought to identify factors associated with the need for navigation to help better target CPN program referrals among breast cancer patients. Six CPNs were recruited directly through the CPN program manager for interviews and surveys. The CPNs identified 27 different factors, which were divided into 4 categories: sociodemographic, psychological, clinical and health systems. While these patient factors (particularly sociodemographic) are not directly modifiable, awareness of their association with the need for navigation could be used to better target patients with a high need for navigation for referral to CPN services.

A recent survey found that the unadjusted average hourly net wage rate of female employees in Kosovo exceeded that of male employees. This reverse gender wage gap makes Kosovo a curiosity, though results from other countries suggest that there is an inverse relationship between the size of the gender pay gap in a country and its female labour force participation rate. In the analysis below we estimate earning functions for female and male employees in Kosovo. Using decomposition analyses we then examine the size of the explained and unexplained gender wage gaps. A novel feature of the investigation is that we incorporate into the analysis gender differences in the allocation of time. We find that the superior productivity-related characteristics of female employees in Kosovo hides the magnitude of the difficulties they still face in the labour market. Hence, we conclude that once we focus on workers with similar observed productivity-related characteristics, women in Kosovo are paid significantly less than men.

Copper nanoclusters (Cu NCs) with a core size smaller than 2 nm exhibit fascinating physical and chemical properties, bridging between nanoparticles and atomic/molecular structures. In particular, the unique fluorescence (FL) characteristics of Cu NCs have attracted increasingly attention in the past decade. Compared with gold or silver NCs, Cu is a relatively cheap, abundant and readily available element, which makes Cu NCs more attractive to the development of sensors. However, Cu NCs still face serious issues, such as low quantum yield and easy to oxidation. This review discusses the latest developments in Cu NCs, with particular emphasis on their synthesis, optical properties, and applications in monitoring water quality. Pivotal factors that control the stability and FL properties of Cu NCs are emphasized. Examples of Cu NCs for monitoring of pH values and sensing of various analytes such as Hg2+, NO2−, S2−, I−, and 2,4,6-trinitrotoluene are provided to show their sensing mechanisms, advantages, and disadvantages. Possible strategies for overcoming the low quantum yields and small scales of preparation of Cu NCs are suggested. To make Cu NCs more popular for sensing, we suggest that Cu NCs shall be integrated with portable microsystems such as array and microfluidic devices.

Constraining urban emissions is gaining more attention because of the important role of cities in reaching national climate mitigation targets. Urban inverse modelling studies could constrain emissions of large hotspots, but still face many challenges. It has been argued that more detailed information is needed on both atmospheric transport and prior emissions when moving to a higher spatial and temporal resolution. In this work we focus on the description of temporal variability in the prior emissions and examine how it impacts the optimization of urban emissions of CO2, CH4 and CO on a monthly time scale representative for a measurement campaign. Currently, temporal profiles based on long-term average activity data are often applied. However, these average temporal profiles are unable to capture a realistic variability in the emissions, such as those imposed by environmental conditions. Therefore, we created a set of location- and time-specific temporal profiles and compared the optimized emissions using these average and specific temporal profiles. We find that using the specific temporal profiles increases the optimized CO2 emissions with 19%, even though the prior monthly emissions are the same. This suggests a change in the source-receptor relationship that affects comparison of the observed and simulated mixing ratios, leading to a different emission estimate. The impact is also large (~40%) for CH4, but this is mainly due to the increase in prior emissions caused by redistributing agricultural emissions over all months of the year. Moreover, we show that extrapolating monthly emission estimates to annual estimates, required for reporting, using the various sets of temporal profiles can result in differences of max. 26% for CO2, 101% for CH4, and 13% for CO. Therefore, we conclude that an accurate representation of the temporal variability is essential for urban inverse modelling studies.

Based on the National Commission for the Protection of the Rights of Women and Children of Indonesia’s annual report, in 2020 there were 11,105 cases of domestic violence reported. Those domestic violence cases were caused by complex factors. One of the causes is the limitation of religious freedom in the family. In Indonesia, between 2010 and 2019, there were several cases of domestic violence caused by women choosing different religions from their parents or husband. Domestic violence involving limitation of the rights of religious freedom is sometimes resolved by divorcing or by completing it with coercive efforts. The rights of religious freedom in Indonesia, although protected by the Constitution and by the Act of Protection of Human Rights No. 39 of 1999, still face various challenges in implementation. The choice of religion in some families is highly influenced and determined by the authority in the family. This article analyzes the secondary data from online news, verdicts, and statistics from the Supreme Court Directory between 2010 and 2019. Findings are analyzed using the perspective of gender studies and anthropology of law.

In this paper, I explore how India’s complex regime of control and management of religious institutions and communities—ironically, particularly Hindu institutions—influences the capacity of these institutions to promote various dimensions of human flourishing and socio-economic uplift among the most marginalized. In addition, I provide an overview of India’s highly varied landscape when it comes to the freedom of religious institutions from state control, and in particular discuss how some minority religious institutions experience fewer government constraints on some aspects of their freedom to self-identify and self-govern, especially when compared to some majority institutions, such as Hindu temples. Although some minority institutions still face constraints on certain aspects of their operations, the freedom they have to manage their internal affairs can, at times, translate into greater agility and the ability to innovate and flourish in the context of 21st-century India.

Extracellular vesicles (EVs) are a family of particles/vesicles present in blood and body fluids, composed of phospholipid bilayers that carry a variety of molecules that can mediate cell communication, modulating crucial cell processes such as homeostasis, induction/dampening of inflammation, and promotion of repair. Their existence, initially suspected in 1946 and confirmed in 1967, spurred a sharp increase in the number of scientific publications. Paradoxically, the increasing interest for EV content and function progressively reduced the relevance for a precise nomenclature in classifying EVs, therefore leading to a confusing scientific production. The aim of this review was to analyze the evolution of the progress in the knowledge and definition of EVs over the years, with an overview of the methodologies used for the identification of the vesicles, their cell of origin, and the detection of their cargo. The MISEV 2018 guidelines for the proper recognition nomenclature and ways to study EVs are summarized. The review finishes with a “more questions than answers” chapter, in which some of the problems we still face to fully understand the EV function and potential as a diagnostic and therapeutic tool are analyzed.

Technology-enhanced methods of dietary assessment may still face common limitations of self-report. This study aimed to assess foods and beverages omitted when both a 24 h recall and a smartphone app were used to assess dietary intake compared with camera images. For three consecutive days, young adults (18–30 years) wore an Autographer camera that took point-of-view images every 30 seconds. Over the same period, participants reported their diet in the app and completed daily 24 h recalls. Camera images were reviewed for food and beverages, then matched to the items reported in the 24 h recall and app. ANOVA (with post hoc analysis using Tukey Honest Significant Difference) and paired t-test were conducted. Discretionary snacks were frequently omitted by both methods (p &lt, 0.001). Water was omitted more frequently in the app than in the camera images (p &lt, 0.001) and 24 h recall (p &lt, 0.001). Dairy and alternatives (p = 0.001), sugar-based products (p = 0.007), savoury sauces and condiments (p &lt, 0.001), fats and oils (p &lt, 0.001) and alcohol (p = 0.002) were more frequently omitted in the app than in the 24 h recall. The use of traditional self-report methods of assessing diet remains problematic even with the addition of technology and finding new objective methods that are not intrusive and are of low burden to participants remains a challenge.

The COVID-19 pandemic has demonstrated that hygiene habits reduce the spread of the SARS-CoV-2 virus on contaminated surfaces. In this context, compounds with biocidal properties can act as surface coatings, especially in hospital environments, a source of pathogenic microorganisms. Therefore, the purpose of this review was to report an overview of recent studies with biocidal agents, focusing on polymeric surface modification. Methods such as direct incorporation, direct deposition, and chemical deposition of the microbial agent on the polymeric surface and surface modification without a microbial agent were discussed. Despite several studies in the literature, antimicrobial materials still face challenges such as commercialization, material stability in post-processing, and guarantee of long cycles. Moreover, effectiveness, toxicity, and final cost must be balanced. We also discussed the concept of antiviral activity and the action mode of the materials. Inorganic, organic materials, nanocomposites, and biopolymers have been addressed as viral inhibitors of several diseases. Lastly, we explored the functional validation of polymeric surface through characterization techniques.

Repairing tooth defects with dental resin composites is currently the most commonly used method due to their tooth-colored esthetics and photocuring properties. However, the higher than desirable failure rate and moderate service life are the biggest challenges the composites currently face. Secondary caries is one of the most common reasons leading to repair failure. Therefore, many attempts have been carried out on the development of a new generation of antimicrobial and therapeutic dental polymer composite materials to inhibit dental caries and prolong the lifespan of restorations. These new antimicrobial materials can inhibit the formation of biofilms, reduce acid production from bacteria and the occurrence of secondary caries. These results are encouraging and open the doors to future clinical studies on the therapeutic value of antimicrobial dental resin-based restoratives. However, antimicrobial resins still face challenges such as biocompatibility, drug resistance and uncontrolled release of antimicrobial agents. In the future, we should focus on the development of more efficient, durable and smart antimicrobial dental resins. This article focuses on the most recent 5 years of research, reviews the current antimicrobial strategies of composite resins, and introduces representative antimicrobial agents and their antimicrobial mechanisms.

In adolescence, the competence of interpersonal relations develops and increase. However, students still face some problems during puberty. These include being ostracized, mocking each other, an unpleasant class atmosphere, isolations, and selfishness. To overcome these problems, guiding and counseling services are needed. Nevertheless, for it to be effective, it is important to understand students' interpersonal issues accurately. The purpose of this study therefore was to describe the nature of interpersonal relationships among students in junior high school. The sample population consisted of 133 junior high school students selected by proportional random sampling technique. Furthermore the instrument used is the scale of interpersonal relations with reliability 0.881. Data analysis used a quantitative approach with descriptive methods. The results therefore showed interpersonal relationships among students were advanced, having an average score of 206.77 and anachievement rate of 78%. The findings of this study might be used by counselors to improve students' interpersonal relationships.

O artigo trata da evolução da dinâmica produtiva da indústria do cinema brasileiro no período de 1995 a 2017, visando a evidenciar o fortalecimento da produção nacional e a emergência de novos centros de produção no país a partir da sua análise como um sistema produtivo. O argumento central reconhece a desverticalização do sistema produtivo da indústria do cinema e enfatiza a interdependência entre a produção de filmes hegemônicos e independentes, revelando a importância da escala comercial e da diversidade produtiva para a sustentabilidade do sistema produtivo e dos centros de produção emergentes. Através dessa perspectiva, trabalhamos com dados secundários disponibilizados pela ANCINE e pelo IBGE, de forma que verificamos o crescimento da produção no Brasil, o aumento da quantidade de empresas e de trabalhadores atuantes na indústria do cinema e a emergência de novos centros de produção, além do eixo Rio-São Paulo. Todavia, os novos centros ainda possuem o desafio de desenvolver a capacidade de realizar projetos possíveis de serem classificados como hegemônicos ou tenderão a perder profissionais para os centros do Rio e de São Paulo.Palavras-chave: Indústria do cinema brasileiro. Sistema produtivo. Dispersão concentrada da produção.ABSTRACTThe article deals with the evolution of the productive dynamics of the Brazilian film industry from 1995 to 2017, aiming to show the strengthening of national production and the emergence of new production centers in the country, through its analysis as a productive system. The central argument recognizes the deverticalization of the productive system of the film industry and emphasizes the interdependence between the production of hegemonic and independent films, revealing the importance of commercial scale and diversity for the sustainability of the productive system and of the emerging production centers. From this perspective, we work with secondary data offered by ANCINE and IBGE, so that we can see the growth of production in Brazil, the increase in the number of companies and workers in the film industry and the emergence of new production centers besides Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo. However, the new production centers still face the challenge of developing the capacity to carry out projects that could be classified as hegemonic or tend to lose professionals to Rio and São Paulo.Keywords: Brazilian film industry. Production system. Concentrated dispersion of production.

Aim In this report, we retrieved and analyzed the data of aluminum contents in foodstuffs over a 6‐year span between 2010 and 2015 and assessed the risk of dietary aluminum exposure in residents of Tianjin metropolis. Methods A multistage random clustering method was used to survey Tianjin residents between 2010 and 2015. Samples were mainly purchased from breakfast vendors, farmers’ markets, and supermarkets in Tianjin between 2009 and 2015. A total of 1,814 persons aged at least 2 years from 1,262 households from randomly chosen communities were asked to complete the questionnaire on food consumption. Aluminum contents in the food samples were determined. Results Totally 21.14% of food samples exceeded the recommended aluminum residue limit over the study period. The mean aluminum levels in the food samples over the 6‐year span were 111.9 7 ± 265.26 mg/kg, and the mean P95 was 597.00 mg/kg. Totally 21.14% of the food samples exceeded the recommended aluminum residue limit (100 mg/kg). The lowest mean aluminum levels in food were detected in 2010, and the highest levels were found in 2015. The highest mean aluminum levels were found in jellyfish. The highest total mean aluminum intake in food was 83.61 mg/day in those aged at least 50 years and younger than 66 years. Meanwhile, children aged at least 2 years and less than 8 years had the highest mean weekly aluminum intake (18.19 mg/kg body weight/week); they also had the highest MOS (18.19). Conclusion The findings indicate that despite the implementation since 2014 of the new policy on the use of aluminum food additives in China, residents in Tianjin still face high levels of aluminum exposure in foodstuffs with young children particularly vulnerable. Public awareness of the new policy should be enhanced, and more vigorous supervision of the use of aluminum food additives should be undertaken.

Highlights • Public–private collaboration and funding has produced some successful pediatric drug development. • Academic pediatricians still face many barriers that limit successful pediatric drug and device development., Background Although improving, development of drugs and devices for children is still less effective than for adults. Pediatric academicians play an important role in the bench-to-bedside research process, but much remains to be done to improve their contributions. Objective To provide a non-comprehensive review of selected literature based on my own personal experience as a U.S. based academic researcher who has spent over 4 decades doing pediatric drug and device development. Methods This commentary presents a summary of a talk given at a recent pediatric drug development conference. The observations and conclusions reached were based on the author's (largely US) experience and review of past history, the role of academicians in this process, some successful models of public–private collaboration, available funding, and barriers that remain to be overcome. Results Pediatric-specific legislation and more available funding have increased participation from and successes of US academicians in the pediatric drug and device development process. Incentive based public–private collaborations have been particularly successful. However, academicians still face both attitude and practical barriers to success. Conclusions Changes are needed if academicians are to maximize their involvement in pediatric drug and device development.

Vehicle detection in aerial images is a challenging task and plays an important role in a wide range of applications. Traditional detection algorithms are based on sliding-window searching and shallow-learning-based features, which limits the ability to represent features and generates a lot of computational costs. Recently, with the successful application of convolutional neural network in computer vision, many state-of-the-art detectors have been developed based on deep CNNs. However, these CNN-based models still face some difficulties and challenges in vehicle detection in aerial images. Firstly, the CNN-based detection model requires extensive calculations during training and detection, and the accuracy of detection for small objects is not high. In addition, deep learning models often require a large amount of sample data to train a robust detection model, while the annotated data of aerial vehicles is limited. In this study, we propose a lightweight deep convolutional neural network detection model named LD-CNNs. The detection algorithm not only greatly reduces the computational costs of the model, but also significantly improves the accuracy of the detection. What's more, in order to cope with the problem of insufficient training samples, we develop a multi-condition constrained generative adversarial network named MC-GAN, which can effectively generate samples. The detection performance of the proposed model has been evaluated on the Munich public dataset and the collected dataset respectively. The results show that on the Munich dataset, the proposed method achieves 86.9% on mAP (mean average precision), F1-score is 0.875, and the detection time is 1.64s on Nvidia Titan XP. At present, these detection indicators have reached state-of-the-art level in vehicle detection of aerial images.

Machine reading and comprehension using differentiable reasoning models has recently been studied extensively, and memory networks have demonstrated promising performance on some reasoning tasks such as factual reasoning and basic deduction. However, as a natural language understanding model, memory networks still face challenges on the numeric representations for sentences, particularly the text representation method and the effectiveness of learned vector representations. In this paper, inspired by the convolution mechanism in the computer vision domain, a raw text representation architecture for question answering problem named convolutional end-to-end memory networks(CMemN2N) architecture is proposed. The convolutional architecture of the proposed model allows us to abstract the useful local information for reasoning to get the significant numeric sentence representation passed to the follow-up sub-tasks. Our experiments show that CMemN2N achieves better results on most of the 20 bAbI task dataset, yielding improvements for the average result compared to the state-of-the-art.

Introduction The aim of this study is to analyse the most cited articles in rotator cuff surgery and identify trends in topics by decade to see which areas may still need further investigation Methods Journal Citation Index was searched to find articles using the search terms pertaining to “rotator cuff repair”. All articles were ranked according to most cited, and then further analysed to find most cited articles in each decade. Articles were grouped into topics to find themes for each decade. Results All the most cited articles were published in 6 orthopaedic journals. Only 4 of the top 30 citations provided level I evidence. Each decade’s most cited articles seemed to fit into a broad topic, with platelet-rich plasma and biologic augmentation being prominent in the last decade. Conclusion There are still many unanswered questions in rotator cuff surgery, but this may be because success of certain treatment options are highly dependent on patient selection. Despite growing numbers of articles being published on rotator cuff repairs, the level of evidence remains low. Larger, collaborative projects may help in answering the common dilemmas that still face shoulder surgeons.

The assessment of three-dimensional (3D) brain cytoarchitecture at a cellular resolution remains a great challenge in the field of neuroscience and constant development of imaging techniques has become crucial, particularly when it comes to offering direct and clear obtention of data from macro to nano scales. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and electron or optical microscopy, although valuable, still face some issues such as the lack of contrast and extensive sample preparation protocols. In this context, x-ray microtomography (μCT) has become a promising non-destructive tool for imaging a broad range of samples, from dense materials to soft biological specimens. It is a new supplemental method to be explored for deciphering the cytoarchitecture and connectivity of the brain. This review aims to bring together published works using x-ray μCT in neurobiology in order to discuss the achievements made so far and the future of this technique for neuroscience.

With more than 90 approved drugs by 2020, therapeutic antibodies have played a central role in shifting the treatment landscape of many diseases, including autoimmune disorders and cancers. While showing many therapeutic advantages such as long half-life and highly selective actions, therapeutic antibodies still face many outstanding issues associated with their pharmacokinetics (PK) and pharmacodynamics (PD), including high variabilities, low tissue distributions, poorly-defined PK/PD characteristics for novel antibody formats, and high rates of treatment resistance. We have witnessed many successful cases applying PK/PD modeling to answer critical questions in therapeutic antibodies’ development and regulations. These models have yielded substantial insights into antibody PK/PD properties. This review summarized the progress, challenges, and future directions in modeling antibody PK/PD and highlighted the potential of applying mechanistic models addressing the development questions.

Periodic frequent pattern discovery is a non-trivial task for analysing databases to reveal the recurring shapes of patterns’ occurrences. Though significant strides have been made in their discovery for understanding large databases in decision-making, existing techniques still face a challenge of reporting a large number of periodic frequent patterns, most of which are often not useful as their periodic occurrences are either by random chance or can be inferred from the periodicities of other periodic frequent patterns. Reporting such periodic frequent patterns not only degrades the performance of existing algorithms but also could adversely affect decision-making. This study addresses these issues by proposing a novel algorithm named SRPFPM (Self-Reliant Periodic Frequent Pattern Miner) for mining and reporting the set of self-reliant periodic frequent patterns as those whose periodic occurrences have inherent item relationships and cannot be inferred from other periodic frequent patterns. Experimental analysis on benchmark datasets show that SRPFPM is efficient and effectively prunes periodic frequent patterns that are periodic due to random chance as well as those whose periodicities can be inferred from other periodic frequent patterns.

In recent years artificial intelligence (AI) has been seen as a technology with the potential for significant impact in enabling firms to get an operational and competitive advantage. However, despite the use of AI, companies still face challenges and cannot quickly realize performance gains. Adding to the above, firms need to introduce robust AI systems and minimize AI risks, which places a strong emphasis on establishing appropriate AI governance practices. In this paper, we build on a single case study approach and examine how AI governance is implemented in order to facilitate the development of AI applications that are robust and do not introduce negative impacts to companies. The study contributes by exploring the main dimensions relevant to AI’s governance in organizations and by uncovering the practices that underpin them.

Cycling is on the rise as a relevant alternative to car-based mobility and even though there are mobile applications specifically designed for cyclists to support this development, many still face unresolved challenges in terms of safe user interaction with complex data while riding. We present the design, development, and evaluation of VeloCity - an application for reporting traffic incidents and structures relevant to cyclists. In a case study, we compared its’ three input methods (touch, in-app speech recognition, the voice assistant of the operating system) to evaluate which attributes make for safe interaction while cycling. We found that participants prefer to use the voice assistant over the other modalities as it was the least distracting due to its hands- and eyes-free interaction design. Furthermore, they chose short commands over conversational phrases. Based on our results, we present five guidelines for designing voice user interfaces for cyclists and argue for moving away from touch-based interfaces in this domain, which still make up most of the applied interaction techniques today.

Copyright: © 2021 Fuertes et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited., Three infant regulatory behavior patterns have been identified during the Face-to-Face Still-Face paradigm (FFSF) in prior research samples: a Social-Positive Oriented pattern (i.e., infants exhibit predominantly positive social engagement), a Distressed-Inconsolable pattern (i.e., infants display conspicuous negative affect that persists or increases across FFSF episodes), and a Self-Comfort Oriented pattern (e.g., infants primarily engage in self-comforting behaviors such as thumb-sucking). However, few studies have examined these patterns outside US and European countries or evaluated potential cross-country differences in these patterns. In this study, we compared the regulatory behavior patterns of 74 Brazilian and 124 Portuguese infants in the FFSF at 3 months of age, and evaluated their links to demographic and birth variables. The prevalence of the three regulatory patterns varied by country. The most frequent pattern in the Portuguese sample was the Social-Positive Oriented, followed by the Distressed-Inconsolable and the Self-Comfort Oriented. However, in the Brazilian sample, the Distressed-Inconsolable pattern was the most prevalent, followed by the Social-Positive Oriented and the Self-Comfort Oriented. Moreover, in the Brazilian sample, familial SES was higher among infants with a Social-Positive pattern whereas 1st-minute Apgar scores were lower among Portuguese infants with a Distressed-Inconsolable Oriented pattern of regulatory behavior. In each sample, Social Positive pattern of regulatory behavior was associated with maternal sensitivity, Self-Comfort Oriented pattern of regulatory behavior with maternal control, and Distressed-Inconsolable pattern with maternal unresponsivity.

Made available in DSpace on 2021-07-14T10:25:08Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 Previous issue date: 2020-12-11. Added 1 bitstream(s) on 2021-07-14T11:29:44Z : No. of bitstreams: 1 S0103-863X2021000100301.pdf: 324890 bytes, checksum: 34ab0f43fbd47908f3f9bed81c1edfbd (MD5) Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP) Estudos têm apresentado diferenças nos comportamentos de autorregulação de bebês quando considerada a idade gestacional. Este estudo teve por objetivo comparar comportamentos interativos de bebês nascidos a termo e prematuros segundo paradigma experimental do Face-to-Face Still-Face (FFSF). Trinta bebês nascidos prematuros e trinta a termo foram observados no procedimento experimental do FFSF que consiste na exposição do bebê a dois episódios de interação com a mãe e a um episódio em que se interrompe a interação. Utilizou-se uma adaptação do Sistema de Codificação e de Análise dos Comportamentos Infantis Expressos no Still-Face para analisar os comportamentos interativos dos bebês. Diferenças significativas foram observadas nos comportamentos de autorregulação. Todos os bebês apresentaram o efeito still-face e de recuperação e os bebês a termo apresentaram o efeito carry-over. Os resultados contribuem para o planejamento de intervenções que auxiliem as mães a promoverem interações diádicas mais positivas. Some studies indicate differences in self-regulatory behaviors of infants, depending on their gestational age. This paper aimed to compare interactive behaviors of full-term and preterm infants in the Face-to-Face Still-Face (FFSF) paradigm. Thirty prematurely born infants and thirty full-term infants were observed in the FFSF’s experimental procedure, which consists in exposing the infant to two episodes of interaction with the mother plus another episode in which the interaction gets interrupted. The Coding System and Analysis of Infant Behaviors Expressed in Still-Face adapted was used to analyze the infants’ interactive behaviors. Significant differences were observed in self-comfort behaviors. All the infants showed the still-face and the recovery effect, and full-term infants showed a carry-over effect. Results contribute to planning interventions that will help mothers promote more positive dyadic interactions. Estudios han mostrado diferencias en las conductas de autorregulación de bebés, de acuerdo con su edad gestacional. Este estudio buscó comparar las conductas interactivas de bebés nacidos a término y prematuros en el paradigma experimental Face-to-Face Still-Face (FFSF). Treinta bebés nacidos prematuros y treinta a término fueron observados en el procedimiento experimental del FFSF que consiste en la exposición del bebé a dos episodios de interacción con la madre y a un episodio en el que se interrumpe la interacción. Se utilizó de una adaptación del Sistema de Codificación y Análisis de las Conductas Infantiles expresadas en Still-face para analizar las conductas interactivas de los bebés. Se observaron diferencias significativas en las conductas de autorregulación. Los bebés mostraron los efectos still-face y de recuperación, y los bebés a término presentaron un efecto carry-over. Los resultados contribuyen para planificar intervenciones que auxilien a las madres a promover interacciones diádicas más positivas. Universidade Estadual Paulista Júlio de Mesquita Filho Universidade Federal da Grande Dourados Universidade do Porto Instituto Politécnico de Lisboa Universidade Estadual Paulista Júlio de Mesquita Filho FAPESP: 2014/10653-4

Conventional prostheses are incapable of reproducing full functionality of biological limbs. Continuous advancements in robotics and materials science have led to the development of soft and anthropomorphic prosthetic hands and legs. Mimicking the compliance and structure of biological limbs provides dexterity to upper limb prosthetic users, and natural gait to lower limb prosthetic users. Although soft and anthropomorphic prosthetic technology has reached a certain maturity level, technologies for restoring somatosensation still face significant challenges. Providing somatosensory feedback can improve the quality of life of amputees by augmenting the functionality of prostheses. Advanced prosthetic sensors obtain various sensory information, while ensuring compliant interaction with the environment. The development of electronic skins that combine multiple sensors and mimic functionalities of biological skin is possible with the recent advancements in materials technology. This chapter reviews soft and anthropomorphic upper and lower limb prostheses, prosthetic sensors, electronic skins, and applications of prosthetic interfaces.

Despite the universal healthcare system in Canada, Canadians of African Descent (CAD) still face numerous problems that place them at higher risk to pandemics such as COVID-19. From the struggles of working as frontline workers, to challenges compounded by pre-existing chronic medical conditions such as Diabetes, CAD may face unique issues, further weighing on their existing and potential health outcomes. This situation calls for closer attention to the specific needs of CAD who may be at greater risk of late diagnosis and delayed treatment for COVID-19. Historically, marginalized communities such as CAD must be included in healthcare considerations and planning, so as to avoid further leaving them behind during and after the storm. Past evidence has shown that structural inequities shape who is affected by disease and its economic fallout. Therefore, the unique needs of CAD must be considered in healthcare planning with the ongoing COVID-19 response. Keywords: pandemic, marginalized, healthcare, COVID-19, Canadians of African Descent

Internet of Things (IoT) devices are spread in different areas such as e-tracking, e-commerce, e-home, and e-health, etc. Thus, during the last ten years, the internet of things technology (IoT) has been a research focus. Both privacy and security are the key concerns for the applications of IoT, and still face a huge number of challenges. There are many elements used to run the IoT technology which include hardware and software such as sensors, GPS, cameras, applications, and so forth. In this paper, we have analyzed and explain the technology of IoT along with its elements, security features, security issues, and threats that attached to each layer of IoT to guide the consideration of researchers into solve and understand the most serious problems in IoT environment.

Access to clean water and electricity is one of the sustainable development agendas being addressed worldwide. However, people living on small islands scattered throughout Indonesia still face difficulties in accessing clean water and electricity. In an effort to overcome this problem, the Indonesian government and other donors are building small-scale clean-water infrastructure in a number of these small islands. Other infrastructure, such as electricity supply, has also been developed in a number of places. The infrastructure framework for these works is directed toward community-based management efforts. However, various problems have emerged after the construction of these facilities. Instead of achieving increased community participation in their management, the opposite occurs. This article investigates this situation using a rapid survey of communities in Bintan Island and Kapo-Kapo Island in the Mandeh Waters area, and finds that the development of small-scale infrastructure has a different impact on the two regions observed. An elaboration of various field findings is presented in detail in this article.

Despite the current diversity and inclusion initiatives in the academic community, researchers with a non-native command of English still face significant obstacles when writing papers in English. This paper presents the Langsmith editor, which assists inexperienced, non-native researchers to write English papers, especially in the natural language processing (NLP) field. Our system can suggest fluent, academic-style sentences to writers based on their rough, incomplete phrases or sentences. The system also encourages interaction between human writers and the computerized revision system. The experimental results demonstrated that Langsmith helps non-native English-speaker students write papers in English. The system is available at https://emnlp-demo.editor. langsmith.co.jp/., Accepted at EMNLP 2020 (system demonstrations)

This brief report reviews findings from a longitudinal study of skin-to-skin contact (SSC) with mothers and full-term infants and a follow-up study of these dyads when the children were 9 years. Findings infer the positive influence of SSC on mother–child interactions in infancy and into children’s middle childhood. Mothers and infants in SSC and control groups were seen when infants were 1 week, 1 month, 2 months, and 3 months. SSC group mothers reported fewer depressive symptoms in infants’ early weeks and had a greater reduction in salivary cortisol, a physiological stress indicator, in infants’ first month (Bigelow et al., 2012). SSC group mothers who initially chose to breastfeed continued to breastfeed their infants throughout the 3 months, whereas breastfeeding mothers in the control group declined over the visits (Bigelow et al., 2014). When engaged in the Still Face Task with their mothers, SSC group infants showed the still face effect with their affect at 1 month, a month before the control group infants did so (Bigelow and Power, 2012). At 3 months, SSC group infants were social bidding to their mothers during the still face phase. When the children were 9 years, the mother–child dyads engaged in conversations about the children’s remembered emotional events (Bigelow et al., 2018). Mother–child dyads who had been in the SSC group showed more engagement and reciprocity in the conversations than mother–child dyads who had been in the control group. Oxytocin, which is induced by SSC, is hypothesized to be an underlying factor that helped the mother–infant relationship have a positive trajectory with long-term benefits.

Remodeling of nanoscopic structures is not just crucial for cell biology, but it is also at the core of bioinspired materials. While the microtubule cytoskeleton in cells undergoes fast adaptation, adaptive materials still face this remodeling challenge. Moreover, the guided reorganization of the microtubule network and the correction of its abnormalities is still a major aim. This work reports new findings for externally triggered microtubule network remodeling by nanosecond electropulses (nsEPs). At first, a wide range of nsEP parameters, applied in a low conductivity buffer, is explored to find out the minimal nsEP dosage needed to disturb microtubules in various cell types. The time course of apoptosis and microtubule recovery in the culture medium is thereafter assessed. Application of nsEPs to cells in culture media result in modulation of microtubule binding properties to end-binding (EB1) protein, quantified by newly developed image processing techniques. The microtubules in nsEP-treated cells in the culture medium have longer EB1 comets but their density is lower than that of the control. The nsEP treatment represents a strategy for microtubule remodeling-based nano-biotechnological applications, such as engineering of self-healing materials, and as a manipulation tool for the evaluation of microtubule remodeling mechanisms during various biological processes in health and disease.

International audience; Digital Twins have emerged since the beginning of this millennium to better support the management of systems based on (real-time) data collected in different parts of the operating systems. Digital Twins have been successfully used in many application domains, and thus, are considered as an important aspect of Model-Based Systems Engineering (MBSE). However, their development , maintenance, and evolution still face major challenges, in particular: (i) the management of heterogeneous models from different disciplines, (ii) the bi-directional synchronization of digital twins and the actual systems, and (iii) the support for collaborative development throughout the complete life-cycle. In the last decades, the Model-Driven Engineering (MDE) community has investigated these challenges in the context of software systems. Now the question arises, which results may be applicable for digital twin engineering as well. In this paper, we identify various MDE techniques and technologies which may contribute to tackle the three mentioned digital twin challenges as well as outline a set of open MDE research challenges that need to be addressed in order to move towards a digital twin engineering discipline.

Background: Although autism spectrum disorder (ASD) can currently be diagnosed at the age of 2 years, age at ASD diagnosis is still 40 months or even later. In order to early screening for ASD with more objective method, behavioral videos were used in a number of studies in recent years. Method: The still-face paradigm (SFP) was adopted to measure the frequency and duration of non-social smiling, protest behavior, eye contact, social smiling, and active social engagement in high-risk ASD group (HR) and typical development group (TD) (HR: n = 45; TD: n = 43). The HR group was follow-up until they were 2 years old to confirm final diagnosis. Machine learning methods were used to establish models for early screening of ASD. Results: During the face-to-face interaction (FF) episode of the SFP, there were statistically significant differences in the duration and frequency of eye contact, social smiling, and active social engagement between the two groups. During the still-face (SF) episode, there were statistically significant differences in the duration and frequency of eye contact and active social engagement between the two groups. The 45 children in the HR group were reclassified into two groups after follow-up: five children in the N-ASD group who were not meet the criterion of ASD and 40 children in the ASD group. The results showed that the accuracy of Support Vector Machine (SVM) classification was 83.35% for the SF episode. Conclusion: The use of the social behavior indicator of the SFP for a child with HR before 2 years old can effectively predict the clinical diagnosis of the child at the age of 2 years. The screening model constructed using SVM based on the SF episode of the SFP was the best. This also proves that the SFP has certain value in high-risk autism spectrum disorder screening. In addition, because of its convenient, it can provide a self-screening mode for use at home. Trial registration: Chinese Clinical Trial Registry, ChiCTR-OPC-17011995.

Although emotional responses are theorized to be important in the development of empathy, findings regarding the prediction of early empathic behavior by infant behavioral and physiological responses are mixed. This study examined whether behavioral and physiological responses to mild emotional challenge (still face paradigm and car seat task) in 118 infants at age 6 months predicted empathic distress and empathic concern in response to an empathy‐evoking task (i.e, experimenter's distress simulation) at age 20 months. Correlation analyses, corrected for sex and baseline levels of physiological arousal, showed that stronger physiological and behavioral responses to emotional challenge at age 6 months were positively related to observed empathic distress, but not empathic concern, at age 20 months. Linear regression analyses indicated that physiological and behavioral responses to challenge at 6 months independently predicted empathic distress at 20 months, which suggests an important role for both physiological and behavioral emotional responses in empathy development. In addition, curvilinear regression analyses showed quadratic associations between behavioral responses at 6 months, and empathic distress and empathic concern at 20 months, which indicates that moderate levels of behavioral responsivity predict the highest levels of empathic distress and empathic concern.

Large-scale omics experiments have become standard in biological studies, leading to a deluge of data. However, researchers still face the challenge of connecting changes in the omics data to changes in cell functions, due to the complex interdependencies between genes, proteins and metabolites. Here we present a novel framework that begins to overcome this problem by allowing users to infer how metabolic functions change, based on omics data. To enable this, we curated and standardized lists of metabolic tasks that mammalian cells can accomplish. We then used genome-scale metabolic networks to define gene modules responsible for each specific metabolic task. We further developed a framework to overlay omics data on these modules to predict pathway usage for each metabolic task. The proposed approach allows one to directly predict how changes in omics experiments change cell or tissue function. We further demonstrated how this new approach can be used to leverage the metabolic functions of biological entities from the single cell to their organization in tissues and organs using multiple transcriptomic datasets (human and mouse). Finally, we created a web-based CellFie module that has been integrated into the list of tools available in GenePattern (www.genepattern.org) to enable adoption of the approach.

This is an essay that seeks to reflect on the challenges and perspectives of health education in the face of the pandemic of disease caused by the new coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19). Based on the reflection on the current scenario, some difficulties are pointed out by authorities and professionals health who are at the forefront on the education of the population to follow the recommendations of official health agencies. The classic forms of prevention, of great importance for public health, such as isolation and the adoption of hygiene habits by the population, still face barriers to be implemented. Trata-se de um ensaio que busca refletir sobre os desafios e as perspectivas de educar em saúde frente a pandemia da doença causada pelo novo coronavírus 2019 (COVID-19). Com base na reflexão sobre o atual cenário, são apontadas algumas dificuldades encontradas por autoridades e profissionais de saúde que estão na linha de frente acerca da educação da população para seguir as recomendações dos órgãos oficiais de saúde. As clássicas formas de prevenção, de grande importância para a saúde pública, como o isolamento social e a adoção de bons hábitos de higiene da população, ainda encontram barreiras para serem implementadas.

Introduction: 5' splice site GT>GC or +2T>C variants have been frequently reported to cause human genetic disease and are routinely scored as pathogenic splicing mutations. However, we have recently demonstrated that such variants in human disease genes may not invariably be pathogenic. Moreover, we found that no splicing prediction tools appear to be capable of reliably distinguishing those +2T>C variants that generate wild-type transcripts from those that do not. Methodology: Herein, we evaluated the performance of a novel deep learning-based tool, SpliceAI, in the context of three datasets of +2T>C variants, all of which had been characterized functionally in terms of their impact on pre-mRNA splicing. The first two datasets refer to our recently described “in vivo” dataset of 45 known disease-causing +2T>C variants and the “in vitro” dataset of 103 +2T>C substitutions subjected to full-length gene splicing assay. The third dataset comprised 12 BRCA1 +2T>C variants that were recently analyzed by saturation genome editing. Results: Comparison of the SpliceAI-predicted and experimentally obtained functional impact assessments of these variants (and smaller datasets of +2T>A and +2T>G variants) revealed that although SpliceAI performed rather better than other prediction tools, it was still far from perfect. A key issue was that the impact of those +2T>C (and +2T>A) variants that generated wild-type transcripts represents a quantitative change that can vary from barely detectable to an almost full expression of wild-type transcripts, with wild-type transcripts often co-existing with aberrantly spliced transcripts. Conclusion: Our findings highlight the challenges that we still face in attempting to accurately identify splice-altering variants.

This manuscript presents a hybrid study of a comprehensive review and a systematic (research) analysis. Myoelectric control is the cornerstone of many assistive technologies used in clinical practice, such as prosthetics and orthoses, and human-computer interaction, such as virtual reality control. Although the classification accuracy of such devices exceeds 90% in a controlled laboratory setting, myoelectric devices still face challenges in robustness to variability of daily living conditions. The intrinsic physiological mechanisms limiting practical implementations of myoelectric devices were explored: the limb position effect and the contraction intensity effect. The degradation of electromyography (EMG) pattern recognition in the presence of these factors was demonstrated on six datasets, where classification performance was 13% and 20% lower than the controlled setting for the limb position and contraction intensity effect, respectively. The experimental designs of limb position and contraction intensity literature were surveyed. Current state-of-the-art training strategies and robust algorithms for both effects were compiled and presented. Recommendations for future limb position effect studies include: the collection protocol providing exemplars of at least 6 positions (four limb positions and three forearm orientations), three-dimensional space experimental designs, transfer learning approaches, and multi-modal sensor configurations. Recommendations for future contraction intensity effect studies include: the collection of dynamic contractions, nonlinear complexity features, and proportional control.

Made available in DSpace on 2021-07-14T10:24:05Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 Previous issue date: 2020-02-14. Added 1 bitstream(s) on 2021-07-14T11:29:18Z : No. of bitstreams: 1 S0103-166X2020000100803.pdf: 159131 bytes, checksum: 0f27edd400ff43fc1203418281ed3274 (MD5) Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP) O presente estudo buscou comparar e descrever a correlação entre comportamentos interativos de quinze mães e seus bebês nascidos muito prematuros (idade gestacional: 28-32 semanas). As díades foram observadas com base no paradigma experimental do Face-to-Face Still-Face, composto por três episódios: nos Episódios 1 e 3 mãe e bebê interagem e, no Episódio 2, a mãe mantém-se inexpressiva. Os comportamentos dos bebês foram analisados conforme três categorias: orientação social positiva, orientação social negativa e autorregulação. Os comportamentos maternos foram classificados em orientação social positiva e negativa. Comparações intragrupo apontaram que as vocalizações maternas foram significativamente maiores no Episódio 1. Comparativamente a outros estudos com prematuros, os bebês deste estudo apresentaram menos comportamentos interativos e mais comportamentos de autoconforto no Episódio 2. No Episódio 3 os comportamentos interativos, tanto das mães quanto dos bebês, recuperaram as frequências apresentadas no Episódio 1. As correlações entre comportamentos maternos intrusivos e comportamentos não interativos ou de interação negativa com o bebê sugerem a relevância de se oferecerem intervenções para promover a sensibilidade materna. The present study compared and correlated interactive behaviors of 15 mothers and their very preterm infants (gestational age: 28-32 weeks). Mothers and infants were observed in the experimental Face-to-Face Still-Face paradigm, consisting of three episodes: in the first and third episodes (play and reunion episodes), mother and infant interact freely; in the second (still-face episode), the mother maintains a still-face expression. The behaviors of the infants were allocated in three categories: positive social orientation, negative social orientation and self-regulation. Maternal behaviors were classified into positive and negative social orientation. Intragroup comparisons indicated that maternal vocalizations were significantly higher in the play episode. Compared to other studies with preterm infants, babies in this study exhibit fewer interactive behaviors and more self-soothing behaviors in the still-face episode. In addition, in the reunion episode, values of the behaviors presented in the play episode were recovered. Correlations between intrusive maternal behaviors and noninteractive or negative-interaction behaviors of the infant suggest the relevance of providing intervention to promote maternal sensitivity. Universidade Estadual Paulista Júlio de Mesquita Filho, Faculdade de Ciências Universidade Federal da Grande Dourados, Faculdade de Ciências Humanas Universidade do Porto, Faculdade de Psicologia e de Ciências da Educação Instituto Politécnico de Lisboa, Escola Superior de Educação de Lisboa Universidade Estadual Paulista Júlio de Mesquita Filho, Faculdade de Ciências FAPESP: 2014/10653-4