Human action Recognition for unknown views is a challenging task. We propose a view-invariant deep human action recognition framework, which is a novel integration of two important action cues: motion and shape temporal dynamics (STD). The motion stream encapsulates the motion content of action as RGB Dynamic Images (RGB-DIs) which are processed by the fine-tuned InceptionV3 model. The STD stream learns longterm view-invariant shape dynamics of action using human pose model (HPM) based view-invariant features mined from structural similarity index matrix (SSIM) based key depth human pose frames. To predict the score of the test sample, three types of late fusion (maximum, average and product) techniques are applied on individual stream scores. To validate the performance of the proposed novel framework the experiments are performed using both cross subject and cross-view validation schemes on three publically available benchmarks-NU-CLA multi-view dataset, UWA3D-II Activity dataset and NTU RGB-D Activity dataset. Our algorithm outperforms with existing state-of-the-arts significantly that is reported in terms of accuracy, receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve and area under the curve (AUC).

Various biodiversity indicators, such as species richness, total abundance and species diversity indices, have been developed to capture the state of ecological community over space and time. As biodiversity is a multifaceted concept, it is important to understand the dimension of biodiversity reflected by each indicator for successful biodiversity conservation and management. Here we present a method to characterize and classify biodiversity indicators according to their dynamical similarity and apply the methodology to the monitoring data of a marine fish community under the intermittent anthropogenic warm water discharge. Our analysis reveals that ten biodiversity indicators can be classified into three super-groups that possibly reflect the same dimension of biodiversity. Group I (species richness) with the most robust dynamics to the temperature changes; Group II (species diversity and total abundance) showing an abrupt change in the middle of the monitoring period, presumably due to a change in temperature; Group III (species evenness) with the highest sensitivity to temperature changes. The finding suggests that selecting indicators from different super-groups might help to fully assess biodiversity response to environmental change.

Urbanisation is increasing worldwide, with major impacts on biodiversity, species interactions and ecosystem functioning. Pollination is an ecosystem function vital for terrestrial ecosystems and food security, however, the processes underlying the patterns of pollinator diversity and the ecosystem services they provide in cities have seldom been quantified. Here, we present a comprehensive meta-analysis, using 133 studies, on the effects of urbanisation on pollinator diversity and pollination. Our results confirm the widespread negative effects of urbanisation on pollinator diversity, particularly of Lepidoptera. Additionally, pollinator responses were found to be trait-specific, with below ground nesting, solitary, and spring flyers more severely affected from urbanisation. Meanwhile, cities promote a greater diversity of non-native pollinators, which may exacerbate conservation risks to native ones. Surprisingly, despite the negative effects of urbanisation on pollinator diversity, pollination services in cities are enhanced and mediated by the high flower visitation rates of abundant generalists and managed pollinators. We highlight that the richness of local flowering plants could mitigate the negative effects of urbanisation on pollinator diversity. Overall, the results demonstrate the varying magnitudes of multiple moderators on urban pollinators and pollination service provision and could help guide conservation actions for biodiversity and ecosystem function for a sustainable future.

Current ecological research and ecosystem management call for improved understanding of the abiotic drivers of community dynamics, including temperature effects on species interactions and biomass accumulation. Allometric trophic network (ATN) models provide an attractive framework to study consumer-resource interactions from organisms to ecosystems, but they rarely consider changes in some key abiotic drivers that affect e.g. consumer metabolism and producer growth. Here we investigate how seasonal changes in carrying capacity and light-dependent growth rate of producers and temperature-dependent mass-specific metabolic rate of consumers affect ATN model dynamics, namely seasonal biomass accumulation, productivity and standing stock biomass of different trophic guilds, including age-structured fish communities. Our simulations of the complex Lake Constance (LC) food web indicated marked effects of seasonal abiotic drivers on seasonal biomass accumulation of different guild groups, particularly among the lowest trophic levels (autotrophs and invertebrates). While the adjustment of irradiance level had minor effect, increasing metabolic rate associated with 1–2˚C temperature increase lead to a marked decline of larval (0-year age) fish biomass, but to a substantial biomass increase of 2- and 3-year-old fish that were not predated by ≥4-year-old perch. A gradual temperature increase of 0.037˚C year–1 observed in LC increased the productivity of highest trophic levels (i.e., juvenile and adult fish) by ca. 40–50% over the 100-year simulation period. However, when looking at biomass distribution and transfer between trophic guilds in the LC food web, inclusion of seasonal abiotic drivers caused only minor changes in average standing stock biomasses and productivity of different trophic guild groups. Our results demonstrate the potential of introducing seasonal variation in abiotic ATN model parameters to simulate within-year fluctuations in community dynamics, as well as to assess potential future community-level responses to ongoing environmental changes.

Introduction: The emergence of real-life health databases has opened the door to studies for signal detection in pharmacovigilance without the formulation of an a priori hypothesis, i.e., without defining a drug/adverse drug event (ADR) pair. Our objective was to perform a systematic review of this type of study and the statistical methods used in this context. Methods: Studies about drug signal detection without a priori hypotheses published in the MEDLINE database between 2012 and 2021 were included. Database name and type, statistical methods, ATC class for the studied drug(s) and SOC MedDRA classification for the studied ADR were extracted. Results: Ninety-two studies were included. Pharmacovigilance databases were the most used type of database. Most studies performed a disproportionality analysis using frequentist or Bayesian methods. The most studied drug classes were anti-infectives, nervous system drugs, and antineoplastics and immunomodulators. No common procedure was implemented to correct for multiple testing. Conclusions: There are very few statistical methods used for drug signal detection without a priori hypotheses, with no consensus-based method and no interest in multiple testing correction. This review argues for the establishment of guidelines to perform such studies.

Low vagility species may hold strong genetic signatures of past biogeographic processes but are also vulnerable to habitat loss. Flightless grasshoppers of the morabine group were once widespread in south-eastern Australia including Tasmania but are becoming restricted to remnant patches of vegetation, with local ranges impacted by agriculture and development as well as management. Habitat fragmentation can generate genetically differentiated “island” populations with low genetic variation. However, following revegetation, populations could be re-established and gene flow increased. Here we characterise SNP based genetic variation in a widespread chromosomal race of the morabine Vandiemenella viatica (race 19) to investigate the genetic health of remnant populations and to provide guidelines for restoration efforts. We update the distribution of this race to new sites in Victoria and Tasmania, and show that V. viatica populations from northern Tasmania and eastern Victoria have reduced genetic variation compared to other mainland populations. In contrast there was no effect of habitat fragment size on genetic variation. Tasmanian V. viatica populations fell into two groups, one connected genetically to eastern Victoria and the other connected to south-western Victoria. Mainland populations showed isolation by distance. These patterns are consistent with expectations from past biogeographic processes rather than local recent population fragmentation and emphasize the importance of small local reserves in preserving genetic variation. The study highlights how genomic analyses can combine information on genetic variability and population structure to identify biogeographic patterns within a species, which in turn can inform decisions on potential source populations for translocations.

Background: Maternal mortality remains a public health issue in developing countries, with rural areas having higher rates compared to urban areas. Since effective utilization of maternal health services has the potential to reduce maternal mortality, this study measures the factors contributing to the existing rural-urban differences in the utilization of maternal health services in Tanzania Methods: We used Tanzania Demographic and Health Survey 2015/2016 data. Multi-stage stratified sampling was used to select study participants and we estimated a Fairlie decomposition to understand factors that contribute to inequality in maternal health services utilization between rural and urban areas in Tanzania using Stata 17. Results: The study findings revealed a considerably wide rural-urban disparity in the utilization of maternal health services. As the findings indicated, household wealth status is the major factor for that disparity. Other factors are women’s exposure to the media, women’s working status, and distance from the homesteads to the health facilities. Conclusion: Therefore, any policy geared toward bridging the gap between rural and urban areas in the utilization of maternal health services should focus on empowering women in terms of household economic status, media exposure, and employment.

Objectives: Non-communicable diseases (NCDs) are a major public health concern that accounts for 74% of global deaths each year. The purpose of this study is to thematically analyze the contributory factors in the health policy process and reforms to strengthen the prevention of NCDs across borders; the milestones achieved through the process of policymaking, change, and implementation. Method: This paper informs and draws on the findings of contributory factors in the health policy process for the prevention of NCDs across borders: United States of America, England, Sweden, Bangladesh, Singapore, South Korea, and Thailand. A descriptive qualitative study design guided by the “Three I’s” framework of public policy (institutions, ideas, and interests). A purposive sample of key informants who are relative players in the policymaking process (e-Interview). In addition to the information obtained from the interviewee, data was also sourced from relevant documents and homepages suggested by the interviewee as well as health homepages of the countries. Result: The following themes were generated: (1) Environmental policies and social determinants, (2) Multistakeholder involvement, (3) Interministerial collaboration, (4) Independent evidence and review institution, (5) National database, and (6) Primary care system. There was a shift from individual-targeted policies to environmental policies and social determinants. Notably, national campaigns were developed through Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) for the primary prevention of NCDs. Conclusion: The shift from behavioral modification and treatment to social determinants is important. NCDs are broad and require a multisector and multilevel approach. The establishment of an organization or hierarchical body to overlook NCDs could result in increased awareness, focus, and surveillance, and enhance the policy process.

Nowadays, the protection mechanisms are introduced into microservice systems to ensure the stable operation of services. However, existing approaches ignore the impact of protection mechanisms on the root cause localization of abnormal services. Specifically, the circuit breaking and rate limiting mechanisms can refuse service requests and thus change the way of anomaly propagation. Moreover, different service request frequencies and response time make service dependencies change dynamically, resulting in different probabilities of anomaly propagation among services. In this paper, we propose a novel framework named MicroGBPM to locate the root cause of abnormal services, which considers the impact of the protection mechanisms. We model anomaly propagation among services as a dynamically constructed service attributed graph with metrics and traces when a failure occurs. To eliminate the impact of the protection mechanisms, we design a two-stage dynamic calibration strategy to adjust the probability of anomaly propagation among services. Then we propose a random walking approach to calculate the root cause results by using the PageRank algorithm. The experimental results show that MicroGBPM improves the accuracy of root cause localization compared to other approaches in microservice systems with protection mechanisms.

In terms of human mortality, cardiac diseases have a higher mortality rate than cancer. Along with mortality rates, cancer morbidity also paints a rather bleak picture. Management of cancer continues to be a difficult task despite advancements in treatment modalities. Cytotoxicity is one of the key indicators in in vitro biological evaluations. Cytotoxic drugs have been shown to, among other things, disrupt cell membranes, inhibit protein synthesis, and bind receptors irreversibly in vitro. A number of short-term cytotoxic effects and cell proliferation assays have been created and used to identify cell death brought on by these insults. Among the in vivo models that have been developed are those that mimic chemical carcinogenesis and xenografts for human malignancies. The current in-vitro and animal models used in the development and evaluation of the therapeutic efficacy of anti-cancer drugs are covered in this article

Objectives: In this study, we aim to describe the diagnostic accuracy of two applications neural networks-based system and a visual algorithm performed by different evaluators to identify the manufacturer of electronic implantable cardiac devices by chest x-rays. Background: cardiac rhythm devices frequently require interrogation, and they have different software depending on the manufacturer. Currently, there are a visual algorithm and two applications based on artificial intelligence for the identification of the manufacturer from chest radiographs. Methods: Retrospective trial between January 2010 and December 2021 at a single institution. Chest radiographs were obtained from patients with cardiac devices; they were cropped and resized to 224 by 224 pixels. Then, they were analyzed using the applications Pacemaker ID ® with a cell phone, Pacemaker ID ® web and PPMnn ® web, and the visual algorithm CaRDIA-X ® performed by evaluators at different levels of training. Results: 400 radiographic images with cardiac devices were collected comprising 4 manufacturers and 40 different models. The agreement for Pacemaker ID ® with a cell phone was 90.6% ( p <0.001), for Pacemaker ID ® web was 81.2% ( p < 0.001); and for PPMnn ® web was 82% ( p < 0.001). The agreement from the CaRDIA-X ® algorithm performed by 4 evaluators ranged from 73.8% to 97.7% ( p < 0.001). Conclusions: The use of applications based on neural networks offers a good agreement in the identification of the manufacturer and is a tool for clinical use. In our paper, the visual algorithm has a better agreement in identifying the manufacturer and it doesn’t require much training.

Aims: To investigate the potential pharmacokinetic interactions of rezvilutamide on metabolic cytochrome P450 enzymes. Methods: A single-centre open-label, single-arm, fixed-sequence clinical trial was conducted in 18 patients with prostate cancer to evaluate the pharmacokinetic effects of rezvilutamide on the probe drugs for CYP3A4(midazolam), CYP2C9(S-warfarin) and CYP2C19 (omeprazole). Results: After a single oral dose of probe drugs alone and coadministration of rezvilutamide: (1) the geometric mean Cmax of plasma midazolam was 87.129 ng/mL and 7.778 ng/mL, the geometric mean AUC0-t was 273.806 h*ng/mL and 13.630 h*ng/mL, the geometric mean AUC0-∞ was 283.096 h*ng/mL and 14.284 h*ng/mL, the mean t1/2 was 5.347 h and 2.907 h, and the geometric mean CL/F was 52.986 L/h and 1050.102 L/h, respectively; (2) the geometric mean Cmax of plasma S-warfarin was 594.166 ng/mL and 555.228 ng/mL, the geometric mean AUC0-t was 17119.082 h*ng/mL and 9712.186 h*ng/mL, the geometric mean AUC0-∞ was 19510.761 h*ng/mL and 10130.752 h*ng/mL, the mean t1/2 was 38.730 h and 27.794 h, and the geometric mean CL/F was 0.513 L/h and 0.987 L/h, respectively; (3) the geometric mean Cmax of plasma omeprazole was 691.371 ng/mL and 282.064 ng/mL, the geometric mean AUC0-t was 2725.853 h*ng/mL and 599.078 h*ng/mL, the geometric mean AUC0-∞ was 2946.118 h*ng/mL and 661.989 h*ng/mL, the mean t1/2 was 2.612 h and 1.081 h, and the geometric mean CL/F was 6.825 L/h and 30.334 L/h, respectively Conclusion: Coadministration of rezvilutamide with midazolam, S-warfarin and omeprazole may cause loss of activity for these medications. Therefore, appropriate mitigation strategies are recommended.

Drought is one of the most important phenomena for humans and living things. Especially in recent years, the effect of drought has reached levels that cannot be ignored. This situation causes negative effects on water resources. In order to minimize these negative effects, it is of great importance to know the trend of drought over time. Many methods are used in the literature to determine the severity of drought. The most widely used of these methods is the Standard Precipitation Index (SPI), which calculates based on precipitation data. There are different classifications for drought severity in the SPI method. Therefore, it is of great importance to know the individual trends for each classification. Classical trend-detecting methods (such as Mann-Kendall) require a separate analysis for each drought classification. However, with Şen’s Innovative Trend Analysis (ITA) method, it becomes possible to determine the trends for all drought classifications on a single graphic. In this way, the change of drought events over time can be easily determined for all drought classifications.

Management of infective endocarditis (IE) in intravenous drug users (IVDUs) can be challenging due to risk of reinfection following surgery. Although complex repair techniques that can be utilized to reconstruct the tricuspid valve after extensive debridement, treatment of active IVDU is incomplete without effective post-operative harm reduction intervention program.

Facial neuromuscular electrical stimulation (fNMES), which allows for the non-invasive and physiologically sound activation of facial muscles, has great potential for investigating fundamental questions in psychology and neuroscience, such as the role of proprioceptive facial feedback in emotion induction and emotion recognition, as well as for clinical applications, such as alleviating depression symptoms. However, despite illustrious origins in 19th century work of Duchenne de Boulogne, the practical application of fNMES remains largely unknown to researchers in psychology and human physiology. In addition, published studies vary dramatically in use and reporting of parameters, such as stimulation frequency, amplitude, duration, and electrode size. Because fNMES parameters impact the comfort and safety of volunteers, as well as its physiological (and psychological) effects, it is of paramount importance to establish recommendations of good practice. Here, we provide an introduction to fNMES, a systematic review of the existing literature focusing on stimulation parameters used, and we offer recommendations on how to safely and reliably deliver fNMES. In addition, we provide a free webpage, allowing to easily verify and compare the safety of fNMES parameters based on current density. As an example of a potential application, we focus on the use of fNMES for the investigation of the facial feedback hypothesis.

Hypochlorous acid (HOCl) is employed for microbial ability as it imparts a great disinfection property. Besides being an oxidizing agent, it is a charge less entity hence it intrudes the proteinaceous layers and ceases the nucleus. It is obligatory to sanitize air-conditioned closed rooms in contagious environment which are vulnerable to infections due to inhibited humidity in air. In this study, HOCl disinfection was studied for parameters like concentration (25, 50 and 100 ppm), pH (4 to 6 and at the elevated pH 6-10 in the room) and the ambient temperature (32, 25 and 20oC) over the time intervals of 30 minutes, 1, 1.5 and 2 hours in the fogged environment followed by the 20 hours of incubation to study growth of microbes and development of colonies. Consequently, the stability of the disinfectant of choice and the reliability of the disinfectant was evaluated on kinetics study on reaction.

In electrical power systems, FACTS devices effectively control power flow and change bus voltages, leading to lower system losses and excellent system stability. The article discusses the research from the last decade that evaluated various methods for placing FACTS devices using the meta-heuristic approach to address the positioning of Facts devices to maintain proper bus voltages and control line flow and improve the overall system efficiency. Several models and techniques suggest that devices can be placed in a particular location with different parameter settings. Finally, the optimization problem improved system performance by decreasing power loss, improving the voltage profile and power angle at each bus, raising the L-index, and minimizing generating costs. FACTS devices can increase the transmission line's capacity for transferring power by increasing the voltage at its terminals at both ends and reducing line reactance. The FACTS controller must be installed in the distribution and transmission lines to maximize the power flow. Various techniques are used for the best placement of FACTS controllers, including analytical methods, arithmetic programming approaches, meta-heuristic optimization approaches, and hybrid approaches---this paper analyses numerous analytical and meta-heuristic optimization techniques to place FACTS controllers in the most advantageous locations. The fundamental problems in intelligent power systems, such as improving stability, power quality, and managing congestion, are discussed in this study, along with several applications of FACTS devices. The cutting-edge power systems of today provide users with constant, high-quality power through smart grids and smart meters. The motivation for the review

Reducing drug development timelines is an industry-wide goal to bring medicines to patients in need more quickly. This was exemplified in the COVID-19 pandemic where reducing development timelines had a direct impact on the number of lives lost to the disease. The use of drug substance produced using cell pools, as opposed to clones, has the potential to shorten development timelines. Toward this goal, we have developed a novel technology, GPEx® Lightning, that allows for rapid, reproducible, targeted recombination of transgenes into more than 200 Dock sites in the CHO genome. This allows for rapid production of high expressing stable cell pools and clones that reach titers of 4 to 12 g/L in generic fed-batch production. These pools and clones are highly stable in both titer and glycosylation, showing strong similarity in glycosylation profiles.

Background Bone tissue engineering emerged as a practical approach to tackle the prosthetic industry limitations. Merging aspects from developmental biology, engineering and medicine with the aim to produce fully-functional bone tissue. Mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) harbor the capability of self-renewal and specific lineage differentiation. Herein lies their potential for bone tissue engineering. Among MSCs, human dental pulp stem cells (hDPSCs) lodge higher proliferation rate, shorter doubling times, lower cellular senescence, and enhanced osteogenesis than hBM-SCs. In addition, these cells have ease in access and a subtle extraction procedure. Thus, harbouring fewer moral concerns than most MSCs available and embodying a promising cell source for BTE therapies able to replace hBM-MSCs. Interestingly, their study has been limited. Conversely, there is a need for their further study to harness their BTE true value, with special emphasis in the design of bioprocesses able to produce viable, homogenous bone constructs in a clinical scale. Methods Here, we study the in vitro osteogenic differentiation of hDPSCs encapsulated in alginate hydrogels under suspended culture in a novel and scalable perfusion bioreactor, establishing culture conditions; and compare it with three-dimensional (3D) static and fed-batch culture. Results hDPSC-based bone-like constructs produced in the novel system performed above the compared culture strategies, displaying higher alkaline phosphatase activity, more homogeneous, denser and functional bone constructs. In addition, cell constructs produced by the in-house designed system were richer in mature osteoblasts. Conclusion This study reports the development of a novel bioprocess able to produce hDPSC-alginate-based bone-like constructs to be used as bone fillers, while providing new insights into hDPSCs therapeutic potential and a system able to be transferred from the laboratory bench into medical facilities.

Background. Cortical visual impairment (CVI) is a severe loss of visual function caused by damage to the visual cortex or its afferents, usually as a consequence of stroke or hypoxic insult. It is one of the leading causes of vision loss in children. Objective. Several studies have demonstrated limited vision restoration in adult CVI patients who trained on well-controlled psychophysical tasks involving complex motion stimuli. Given the greater potential for plasticity in the young brain, we hypothesized that similar vision training would be more effective in young patients. Methods. To test this hypothesis, we conducted a proof-of-principle study in one young CVI patient (age 18), to test the training speed, efficacy and generalizability of vision rehabilitation using complex motion stimuli. The patient trained at home and in the laboratory, on a psychophysical task that required discrimination of motion stimuli presented in the blind field. Visual function was assessed before and after training, using perimetric measures, as well as a battery of psychophysical tests. Results. The patient showed rapid improvements on the training task, with performance going from chance to 80% correct over the span of 11 sessions. With further training, improved vision was found for untrained stimuli and for perimetric measures of visual sensitivity. Some, but not all, of these performance gains were retained upon retesting after one year. Conclusion. These results suggest that existing vision rehabilitation programs can be highly effective in pediatric patients. Validation with a large sample size is critical, and future work should also focus on improving the usability and accessibility of these programs for young patients.

Automatic real-time detection of structural damages on site is a required technology to enable rapid, accurate, and on-site inspection. This paper introduces an automated intelligent inspection system capable of detecting structural problems, such as cracks, in real-time at the edge of power plant components. Since no available dataset was suitable for this case study, a real dataset was created by combining new and existing. For inspection, this project customized a Deep Neural Network (DNN) model to fit our application, including its quantization to enable deployment at the edge. Real-time, on-site results from aerial and hand-held setup images of the stack of an old power plant show that the system is capable of identifying and localizing cracks within the field of view (FOV) of the camera with a mean average precision (mAP) of 98.44% and ∼ at 2.5 frames per second (FPS) with real-time inference for crack detection at the edge.

Background and Purpose: Overexpression of astrocytic lactoferrin (Lf) was observed in the brains of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) patients, whereas the role of astrocytic Lf in AD progression remains unexplored. In this study, we aimed to evaluate the effects of astrocytic Lf on AD progression. Experimental Approach: The APP/PS1 mice with astrocytes overexpressing human Lf were developed to evaluate the effects of astrocytic Lf on AD progression, and the N2a-sw cells were employed to further uncover the mechanism of astrocytic Lf on β-amyloid (Aβ) production. Key Results: Astrocytic Lf overexpression increased protein phosphatase 2A (PP2A) activity, and reduced amyloid precursor protein (APP) phosphorylation, Aβ burden and tau hyperphosphorylation in APP/PS1 mice. Mechanistically, astrocytic Lf overexpression promoted the astrocytic Lf secretion into neurons in APP/PS1 mice, and the conditional medium from astrocytes overexpressing Lf inhibited the p-APP(Thr668) expression in N2a-sw cells. Furthermore, the recombinant human Lf (hLf) also significantly enhanced PP2A activity and inhibited p-APP expression, while inhibitions of p38 or PP2A activities abrogated the hLf-induced p-APP downregulation in N2a-sw cells. Additionally, hLf promoted the interaction of p38 and PP2A via p38 activation, thereby enhancing PP2A activity; and low-density lipoprotein receptor-related protein 1 (LRP1) knockdown significantly reversed the hLf-induced p38 activation and p-APP downregulation. Conclusions and Implications: Our data suggested that astrocytic Lf promoted neuronal p38 activation via targeting to LRP1, subsequently promoting p38 binds to PP2A to enhance PP2A activity, which finally inhibited Aβ production via APP dephosphorylation. Therefore, promoting astrocytic Lf expression may be a potential strategy against AD.

Various neurological symptoms have been reported as the side effect of COVID-19 vaccines. Vaccine-associated acute Cerebellitis is very uncommon. Here, we report a 45-year-old female with acute onset cerebellitis, beginning 10 days after administration of Sinopharm vaccine. Her CSF COVID-19 PCR was found to be positive, with no pulmonary symptoms.

A document by Lauren Svejcar. Click on the document to view its contents.