Alcohol screening and brief interventions (ASBIs) for risky drinkers are known to reduce alcohol consumption and alcohol-related harm. The present study was the first to investigate the effectiveness of an ASBI for high-risk drinkers of low socioeconomic status (SES) in the Korean community social service setting.This study aims to evaluate the effectiveness of an ASBI for clients in community social service settings in South Korea.A total of 153 clients in social service agencies participated in this study. Clients in the experimental group received alcohol use screening and two sessions of brief motivational interventions (MI). Clients in the comparison group received alcohol problems screening test only. Primary outcome variable was the amount of weekly alcohol consumption, which was measured once before the intervention and three times after the intervention.When analyses were conducted separately for participants from the self-sufficiency centers and those from the community welfare centers, there was a significant time and group interaction effects. The amount of weekly alcohol consumption of the experimental group was gradually reduced over time. However, the amount of the comparison group was reduced at the four-week follow-up but was increased both at the eight-week and 12-week follow-ups.This study demonstrates the need to provide training and education in the ASBI to social service workers working with the underprivileged, as such training would increase the identification of alcohol-related risks of the people most vulnerable to alcohol-related problems.No significant relationships.


Social dysfunction is a significant feature of schizophrenia leading to deminution of quality of life (QoL).To explore the correlation between social functioning and quality of life in patients diagnosed with schizophrenia.The study sample comprised 32 patients diagnosed with schizophrenia  recruited from the Clinic for mental disorders “Dr Laza Lazarevic” in Belgrade, with a mean age of 41.28 years , assessed by the Social Functioning Scale (SFS) and the World Health Organization Quality of Life questionnaire (WHOQOL-BREF).There were two significant quasi-canonical positive correlations between social functioning and QoL  The first structure is formed through the set of SFS subscales- Recreation, Independence-performance and Independence-competence and set of QoL subscales- Mental health, Physical health, Environment and General assessment of QoL. The second structure is formed through the set of SFS subscales- Interpersonal functioning and Social engagement/withdrawal and the set of QoL subscales- General assessment of QoL and Environment. Furthermore, the first canonical component indicates a greater overlap of the opposition set by social functioning (23%) which leads to the assumption that the direction of influence goes from social functioning to QoL. Due to the equality of redundancy in the second canonical component, the direction of influence can only be inferred on the basis of the first canonical component.Social functioning and quality of life are related in patients diagnosed with schizophrenia, and this relationship is based on specific subfactors within those areas.No significant relationships.


Recently, the realization of the spiral mass transfer of matter has attracted the attention of many researchers. Nano- and microstructures fabricated with such mass transfer can be used for the generation of light with non-zero orbital angular momentum (OAM) or the sensing of chiral molecules. In the case of metals and semiconductors, the chirality of formed spiral-shaped microstructures depends on the topological charge (TC) of the illuminating optical vortex (OV) beam. The situation is quite different with polarization-sensitive materials such as azopolymers, azobenzene-containing polymers. Azopolymers show polarization-sensitive mass transfer both at the meso and macro levels and have huge potential in diffractive optics and photonics. Previously, only one-spiral patterns formed in thin azopolymer films using circularly polarized OV beams and double-spiral patterns formed using linearly polarized OV beams have been demonstrated. In these cases, the TC of the used OV beams did not affect the number of formed spirals. In this study, we propose to use two-beam  interference lithography for realization spiral mass transfer with the desired number of formed spirals. The TC of the OV beam allows for controlling the number of formed spirals. We show the microstructures fabricated by the laser processing of thin azopolymer films can be used for the generation of OAM light at the microscale with the desired TC. The experimentally obtained results are in good agreement with the numerically obtained results and demonstrate the potential of the use of such techniques for the laser material processing of polarization-sensitive materials. The fabricated multi-spiral microstructures were used for the generation of OV beams with the desired TCs corresponding to the number of formed spirals. The proposed method provides the possibility of the use of structured interference patterns generated with a single spatial light modulator for the fabrication of microelements generating OAM light at the microscale for laser manipulation, integral optics, and biophotonic applications. Thus, our results represent a pathway towards the easy-to-implement inexpensive fabrication of spiral-shaped microstructures for advanced photonic applications. We believe that the fabricated structures can also be used for sensing chiral molecules and controlling helical dichroism. The control of light–matter interactions in these cases may present new opportunities with regard to chiroptical spectroscopy, light-driven molecular machines, optical switching, and the in situ ultrafast probing of chiral systems and magnetic materials [An approach for the fabrication of multi-spiral microstructures in azopolymer thin films with direct laser patterning was realized. The approach was based on the use of structured laser beams in the form of spiral-shaped interference fringes generated through the interference of an OV beam with a Gaussian beam with a spherical wavefront. In contrast with demonstrated earlier spiral-shaped mass transfer with OV beams, this technique allows for the fabrication of spiral-shaped microstructures with a desired number of spirals. In addition, there is no significant difference in the profiles of the fabricated multi-spiral microstructures when we use linearly or circularly polarized radiation. The profiles of the fabricated microstructures measured with a scanning probe microscope were very well approximated with the inversion of the intensity of the longitudinal component of an illuminating laser beam, as was noted in our previous studies ,25. Hereaterials .


Early Intervention Programmes in Psychosis Mental illness is associated with high burden of disease and it has severe individual and societal consequences. In first episode psychosis, specialised Early Intervention Services with team-based intensive case management and family involvement are superior to standard treatment in reducing psychotic and negative symptoms and comorbid substance abuse and improving social functioning and user satisfaction. The results of the OPUS-trials will be presented together with meta-analyses based on similar trials. The sustainability of positive effects will be highlighted with results from three different trials. Results of long-term follow-up studies indicate that the prognosis of first episode psychosis is very diverse with the extremes represented by one group being well functioning and able to quit medication without relapse; and another group having a long-term chronic course of illness with a need for support to maintain daily activities. The latter is, in spite of many efforts, still poorly served. A substantial proportion of patients with psychosis have treatment resistant auditory hallucinations. The UK-based AVATAR-trial was the first to demonstrate effect of simulation training on devaluating voices. The Danish CHALLENGE-trial aim to replicate the findings from the AVATAR trial in a virtual reality setting.No significant relationships.


The Covid-19 pandemic has had a significant impact on the mental health of adolescents. Several descriptive studies and systematic reviews have shown an increase in suicide rates in this age group.- To present a literary review on the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on the mental health and suicidal behavior of adolescents around the world. - To present data on admission rates due to suicidal behavior during the first year of the Covid-19 pandemic in a Spanish child-adolescent psychiatric hospitalization unit.- We will present a literature review and a retrospective cross-sectional study on admission rates for suicidal behavior in a child-adolescent psychiatric hospitalization unit. - Admission rates for suicidal behavior during the year prior to the pandemic will be compared with rates relative to the first year of the pandemic.- We have found a significant increase in admission rates for suicidal behavior during the year of the pandemic. Similar results have been found in different studies and meta-analyzes. - The socio-demographic characteristics of the patients are quite similar in the two periods of time analyzed, but the reference to intra-family problems has been more frequent in the year of the pandemic.Our data is in line with other studies suggesting that the Covid-19 pandemic has had a strong impact on teenage suicidal behavior.No significant relationships.


Due to the non-linear nature of relativistic laser induced plasma processes, the development of laser-plasma accelerators requires precise numerical modeling. Especially high intensity laser-solid interactions are sensitive to the temporal laser rising edge and the predictive capability of simulations suffers from incomplete information on the plasma state at the onset of the relativistic interaction. Experimental diagnostics utilizing ultra-fast optical backlighters can help to ease this challenge by providing temporally resolved inside into the plasma density evolution. We present the successful implementation of an off-harmonic optical probe laser setup to investigate the interaction of a high-intensity laser at  It requires predictive power of simulation tools in quantitative agreement with experimental results and it is still challenging to achieve for laser-solid interactions3. One important reason is the large range of interaction physics at different time scales and laser intensities impacting the solid prior to the arrival of the laser peak7 and connected to that the difficulty of capturing the dynamics by a single simulation tool. Although the relativistic laser-plasma interaction can be mapped by particle-in-cell simulations8, the computable time window is limited and the captured physics must be dominated by the laser field. For lower intensities in the laser rising edge, approaches of radiation-hydrodynamic codes are often used to capture the longer time scales and approximate the more localized energy deposition10.Full control of high-intensity laser-matter interaction is key to enable applications like fast ignition for inertial confinement fusion17. However, for ultra-relativistic laser intensities approaching 20, strong plasma self-emission, scattered light and surface harmonics often mask the central region of the plasma on the detector. This complicates the application of advanced probing techniques like polarimetry or few-cycle optical probing23. A promising path to overcome this issue is the shift of the probing wavelength away from the fundamental and the harmonic wavelengths of the high-intensity pump laser25, hereafter referred to as “off-harmonic optical probing”.An alternative approach is the use of time-resolved experimental diagnostics that infer properties of the target shortly before the arrival of the laser peak. Microscopy techniques utilizing ultra-fast optical backlighters are a common tool to characterize the plasma density distribution in high intensity laser-solid interactions32 serves as a test bed and facilitates recording of optical probing data and comparison with particle-in-cell simulations. Based on spectral measurements of the plasma self-emission at different pump laser contrast conditions, the applicability of the probing technique and the importance of spectral backlighter fluence are discussed. Conducting a time delay scan, the concept enables observations of target ionization within the rising edge of the laser and target expansion before and after the peak of the pulse, so far not accessible at this intensity level. Providing realistic starting conditions for the interaction of the relativistic main pulse, a three dimensional particle-in-cell (PIC) simulation is conducted and compared to the experiment. The experimentally observed expansion dynamics are confirmed and discussed.Here, we demonstrate this technique using a 19 at the Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden–Rossendorf and the experimental setup is sketched in Fig. 33. In this study, a continuously flowing jet of cryogenic hydrogen35 with 36 . In general, the temporal synchronization is based on three pillars. The first is the high-frequency synchronization at the level of the laser oscillator frequency or higher. It determines the temporal shot-to-shot stability of the pump-probe delay in the experiment and is desired to be close to the laser pulse duration. The core is a highly stable external clock laser. The optical signal of this laser is distributed over individual fiber links to the lock-electronics of pump and probe laser oscillator, each located in a different experimental cave. Accumulating the electronic and optical jitters in the whole chain up to experiment yields an RMS pump-probe delay stability of 25. Together with the pulse duration of the probe laser, the temporal resolution of a time delay scan is calculated to be For long-term availability of optical probing capabilities of a laser-plasma laboratory it is beneficial to implement an independent laser system instead of picking a probe from the pump laser beam after compression. The alignment of target and probe is completely independent from the pump laser settings and by utilizing different laser media for pump and probe laser the possibility for off-harmonic probing is intrinsically given. An important aspect is the temporal synchronization of both laser systems and two options are commonly used. Either pump and probe laser share the same laser oscillatorFor the present installation, the temporal synchronization stability of the pump-probe setup is sufficiently precise to scan the high-intensity laser-matter interaction within hundreds of fs around the pump laser pulse.Equally important to the appropriate choice of the backlighter wavelength is the discrimination of the probe signal from the plasma self-emission. Both sufficient spectral filtering and spectral fluence of the probe are needed. Dielectric coatings on vacuum windows and spectral bandpass filters can have low damage thresholds and need to be protected against high fluences, especially from the ultraviolet light of the mentclass2pt{minim39. Depending on the pre-pulse timing, the pre-pulses utilized here generate a scalelength of multiple pump laser wavelengths. Therefore, the observation of a reduced signal of the tail of the second harmonic with increased pre-pulse delay is expected. The homogeneous spectral emission that is observed for both pre-pulse settings can be attributed to an interplay between several mechanisms. First, the generation of a plasma density surface-scalelength increases the coupling efficiency of laser energy into electrons and produces a higher number of photons in a broad energy range41. Second, as the target is pre-expanded it features a larger surface area to emit thermal radiation. Third, the increased amount of undercritical plasma acts as a highly non-linear medium to the incident pump laser and spectral broadening and self-phase modulation occur44.The efficiency of the first filter stage against the fundamental and the harmonics of the pump laser is measured with the spectrometer in the spectral band between mentclass2pt{minimThe technical implication of the measured plasma self-emission to off-harmonic optical probing becomes clear by comparing the signal heights of the self-emission to the probe spectrum (probe only) in Fig. entclass1pt{minima23. For few-cycle probe pulses it has been shown that spectral filtering behind the probed interaction does not diminish the time resolution of the probing data22. A careful choice of spectral filters and a precise characterization of the plasma self-emission will enable future developments into this direction.In general, viewing the non-spatial parameters of the probe beam, e.g. pulse duration and energy, it is important to consider that the Fourier-limited laser pulse duration is inherently linked to spectral bandwidth by the time-bandwidth product. Shorter probe pulses require a broader bandwidth and the pulse energy is always distributed over the whole spectrum. It follows that, at constant pulse energy, shorter pulses have a lower spectral energy per unit wavelength than longer pulses. However, for a probing image without saturation of the detector it is required that the probe beam is spectrally brighter than the plasma self-emission but at the same time the probe needs to stay non-invasive, i.e. non-ionizing. Depending on the pump laser contrast, a concentration of the probe pulse energy into a narrow bandwidth can be beneficial. For example, reducing the time resolution by using a picosecond probe in conjunction with narrow bandpass filters on the camera could outshine the self-emission in the The appropriate choice of backlighter wavelength, sufficient spectral filtering in the imaging beamline and a good contrast between spectral probe laser fluence and spectral plasma self-emission enables the optical investigation of the plasma dynamics at 45 into a partially ionized plasma, where the density of electrons in the conduction band is close to or higher than the critical plasma density of the probe wavelength  of high-intensity laser pulses on thin plastic targets up to a pump laser peak intensity of 49) and second by the dissipation of hot electrons from the center of the interaction when the pump laser intensity becomes relativistic. The hot electrons stream into the surrounding target volume and cause additional colder return currents. Thus, the hot electrons ionize the solidified hydrogen either directly by collisions or indirectly by field-ionization51.The time-dependent increase of the opaque target volume between For pump-probe delays later than Three characteristic transient target states are identified, each in a different time domain. Close-ups of representative shadowgrams are depicted in Fig. 53 version 0.4.3 is conducted (see Methods section). In the PIC simulation the target is initialized as a fully ionized plasma cylinder with a density of solid hydrogen and a diameter of The ultra-fast plasma expansion following the pump laser peak occurs on a time-scale close to the probe laser pulse duration and motional blurring of the individual shadowgrams is expected. To compare the experimental obervation to the theoretically expected plasma expansion dynamics and to get more inside into the role of relativistically induced transparency to full target transparency at 54. Therefore, a top view slice of the electron density Due to the mass ratio of protons and electrons, light transparency of plasmas is governed by electron interaction. For relativistic laser plasmas, the high velocity of electrons can be considered as a mass increase quantified by the relativistic gamma factor 54To compare the PIC simulation to the experiment, the shadowgram formation for a given particle density distribution obtained from the PIC simulation needs to be modeled. For this, a dispersion relation of the plasma is required and the refractive index The simulated front and rear side shadow radii from the particle densities at For investigating the origin of the spikes, a more detailed view into the simulation results would be required. The same applies for the plasma dynamics for times between mentclass2pt{minimAnother experimental observation is the full transparency of the target at The temporal evolution of We demonstrated the application of an off-harmonic optical probing setup at a high intensity laser interaction with a cylindrical cryogenic hydrogen jet target. We have shown the temporal synchronization concept and confirmed the necessity of a beam arrival monitor if a timing precision comparable to or below the probe laser pulse duration is required. We explored the laser-contrast-dependent spectral emission characteristics of the plasma self-emission and discussed the results and its implications on optical probing of similar interactions concerning the choice of backlighter wavelength, spectral bandwidth, spectral fluence and spectral filters. The efforts and concept allowed to make hitherto impossible observations of the target evolution via optical shadowgraphy at a pump laser intensity of In conclusion, we have shown that off-harmonic optical shadowgraphy probing provides realistic initial target parameters as input for three dimensional PIC simulations at the discussed laser intensities and the technique is able to provide quantitative feedback to simulations of the relativistic laser-plasma interaction.36. The imaging system of the target uses a custom-made finite conjugate apochromatic objective with a numerical aperture (NA) of 0.28 and a working distance of The probe laser pulses with A schematic of the temporal synchronization setup is given in the supplementary Fig. 25. The supplementary Fig. 25. From this data we retrieve an RMS pump-probe delay stability of To benchmark the temporal delay stability between pump and probe laser we first conduct noise measurements of each individual laser oscillator with a stable external clock (FSWP by Rohde-Schwarz) and secondly of the combined and amplified laser systems on the beam arrival monitor (BAM)To minimize optical image distortion, to protect all following optical elements and to minimize the fluence on the filter for all wavelength that are contained in the plasma self-emission, the first spectral filter stage is placed directly behind the objective ® V100 and the run time is 4.5h.The PIC cycle uses the Yee field solver, Esirkepov current deposition and Boris particle push. The simulation uses 18 particles per cell. The pump laser pulse in the PIC simulation is initialized with p-polarization, Supplementary Information.


Teaching Point: Air trapping is a useful sign for early detection of worsening lobar collapse in the follow-up of obstructive atelectasis. A 40-year-old female patient with paraplegia due to a motor vehicle accident 22 years earlier was admitted to the critical care unit after a surgery for colonic volvulus. She had a persistent left lower lobe collapse over the course of several weeks as seen in the first bed-side chest radiograph . This raCollapse (or atelectasis) is defined as the absence of gas exchange and loss of volume of a pulmonary lobe or a whole lung. Atelectasis can be of obstructive or non-obstructive etiologies. In adults, obstructive atelectasis can be caused by a tumor or a mucus plug. In case of central bronchial obstruction, collapse with loss of volume may be preceded by air trapping or hyperinflation due to a valve-like mechanism of the bronchial obstruction. The same mechanism of air trapping occurs in the setting of bronchiolitis obliterans in which the obstruction occurs at the level of small airways by a fibroproliferative process . Of noti


Studies have shown that engaging family caregivers of people with dementia in creative activities can provide therapeutic benefits by relieving stress and promoting well-being. However, there is a dearth of studies focusing on the involvement of racial minority family caregivers of people with dementia in research involving art and creative activities. The purpose of this study is to present the results of a case study interview with an artist-educator-community collaborator who acted as a key facilitator for the ACTION ARTS study. The purpose of the ACTION ARTS study was to utilize mobile technology applications for facilitating creative activities to enhance health and well-being of African-American family caregivers and their loved ones in the middle-to-late stages of dementia. The study included activities such as memory stimulation, art viewing, art making, and other forms of creative expressions. The research question for the current case study was: What are the best practices for engaging African-American family caregivers of older adults in the middle-to-late stages of dementia in research involving art and creative activities? Thematic analysis of the qualitative data from the case study interview yielded the following recommendations/results (1) Design the program of art and/or creative activities in an easy way to facilitate interaction among participants; (2) Make the program as accessible and relevant as possible so everyone is able to relate to it; (3) Emphasize areas of commonality that could help in giving both the facilitators and participants food for thought.


Telemedicine has been at the heart of healthcare system’s strategic response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Within psychiatry, there has been a surge of research and guidelines into the use of video-teleconferencing to replace face to face consultations across clinical settings. Clinical ward rounds are central to inpatient psychiatric care yet little guidance is available on how best to integrate telemedicine into the multidisciplinary work of inpatient psychiatry.We report on the introduction of video teleconferencing for psychiatric ward rounds on our acute inner-London psychiatric unit during the outbreak of COVID-19.In undertaking the rapid transition to tele-ward rounds, we had to reconcile the multiple functions of psychiatric ward rounds with the technological resources available to us.Tele-ward rounds helped simplify care delivery, facilitate multidisciplinary collaboration and improve accessibility for patients and relatives in a time of crisis. The transition to tele-ward rounds also brought about technical, operational and communication issues that may impact on the patient experience and quality of care including governance challenges, contextual dissonance and technological limitations.The routine use of newer technology in psychiatry ward rounds is unlikely to succeed on the basis of improvisation, particularly given the stream of technical innovations in telemedicine, and the multifarious quality of social interactions in our clinical setting. Staff training and the development of an adapted etiquette and code of communication are both essential. Patient participation in future developments will also help ensure tele-ward rounds continue to meet the standards of high quality inpatient psychiatric care beyond the COVID-19 pandemic.No significant relationships.


Bioscience Reports at the request of the Editor-in-Chief and the Editorial Board following receipt of a notification from a reader alerting the Editorial Board to an apparent duplicate region within the si-NC and the miR-143-3p mimic + pcDNA-MSI2 panels of Figure 7H. Additional concerns exist over the western blots within the paper. The authors have been contacted with regards to the retraction and have not responded to the Journal's queries or the concerns raised. Given the extent of the issues raised, the Editorial Board stand by the decision to retract the article.This article is being retracted from


Fostering health literacy is considered an important objective within school-based strategies of health promotion. To effectively strengthen health literacy in the school setting the approach of organizational health literacy can be transferred to and implemented in schools. This approach combines behaviour-focused measures  and environment-orientated measures (changing school's framework conditions). The HeLit-Schools project aims at developing a school-based concept of organizational health literacy and tools to support schools in becoming health-literate schools.Existing concepts of organizational health literacy of other setting are analysed and adapted to the school setting. The concept development includes the expertise of actors from the school field, health literacy research and health sector. They contribute by commenting, reviewing and validating the conceptualization at different stages in the development process. A quantitative assessment of schools’ organizational health literacy is planned to further validate the concept. Furthermore, a screening of existing materials and programs for schools to use to foster health literacy is being conducted.The developed HeLit-Schools concept describes eight standards of a health-literate school. Every standard focuses on a specific area within the school's organization that can be addressed and changed in order to strengthen everyone's health literacy at school more effectively. To additionally support schools in fostering health literacy in school as well as in the classroom, a structured collection of existing (teaching) materials and programs was assembled.Enhancing schools’ organizational health literacy and thus promoting school development by optimizing schools’ structures, processes and conditions in a health-literate matter can lead to an effective and sustainable strengthening of health literacy of every individual at school.


Quality of life is one of the most important and holistic measures of perceived overall well-being across the lifespan. For older adults living with cognitive impairment, quality of life has been conceptualized as consisting of an array of intertwined domains, such as relationship quality, physical health and ability, and opportunities for roles and activities. A subset of measures have been developed to gauge quality of life in older adults living with cognitive impairment, yet no “gold standard” in measurement has emerged. Quality of Life – Alzheimer’s Disease (QOL-AD) is one of the most commonly used and long-standing measures, yet it was developed in 2002 and has yet to be updated to reflect the evolution of our understanding of quality of life in adults living with cognitive impairment. Drawing from the literature on adults living with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD), the researchers identified several domains and items to update and expand the applicability of the QOL-AD measure. The proposed revised measure, Quality of Life – Alzheimer’s Disease/Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities (QOL-AD/IDD), is intended for adults living with cognitive impairment regardless of age or cause of impairment . The QOL-AD/IDD retains the format of the original measure, most notably the useful prompts that accompany each item and the supplemental proxy measure for caregivers. In this presentation, the researchers will discuss the development of the QOL-AD/IDD and ongoing  and planned steps to evaluate the reliability and validity of this promising measure.


The decline in physical and mental well-being is common with age. The negative impact of poor quality of sleep and depressive symptomatology contributes to the decline in well-being among middle to older adults. African Americans are more likely to report a decrease in well-being as they age. They are also disproportionately affected by poorer sleep quality and may be at greater risk for depressive symptomatology. Dispositional mindfulness is linked to improved well-being. Research has shown dispositional mindfulness is related to adaptive health behaviors, improved sleep quality, and reduced negative affect. Mindfulness allows engagement of early regulation of intense emotional responses because of nonjudgmental acceptance of thoughts and emotions. Therefore, this study aims to examine the impact of mindfulness on physical/mental well-being and depressive symptomatology through sleep. 131 African American participants were recruited for the study, with an average age of 58 years. The results showed a significant effect of mindfulness on well-being and depressive symptoms. Additionally, the impact of mindfulness on mental and physical well-being was mediated by sleep quality  and sleep disturbance . The results also showed an indirect effect of mindfulness on depressive symptoms through sleep quality . This study demonstrates the positive impact of mindfulness on well-being and depressive symptomatology. Sleep quality also plays an important role in the relationship between dispositional mindfulness and physical/mental well-being and depressive symptomatology in middle to older African Americans.


Quality of life (QOL) instruments can provide unique information on various aspects of children’s everyday functioning beyond clinical symptoms and clinical measures. The study of the QOL in the siblings of individuals with an Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD-siblings) is a new direction in the field of ASD-research.This study aimed to investigate the QOL in ASD-siblings in comparison with an age and sex matched group of siblings of neurotypical children.The sample included 233 neurotypical children (8-13 years old) of whom 118 comprised the observational group (ASD-siblings) and 115 comprised the comparison group. The Kidscreen-27 and a demographics questionnaire were administered to all participants.The two groups differed significantly in all subscales and in the overall score of the Kidscreen-27, with the children in the observation group having a significantly worse quality of life . Additionally, the largest difference in the averages of the subscales occurs in the subscale General Mood and Emotions, where the observation group had significantly lower scores  than the comparison group .QOL in children has been recognized as an important outcome indicator in detecting subgroups of children at risk within the general population, while ASD-siblings’ QOL is an important concept in the implementation of appropriate services for these children. This study revealed poorer QOL in ASD-siblings and highlighted the importance of assessing QOL in those siblings as well as the use of the Kidscreen-27 as a screening tool in order to detect children at risk of maladjustment.No significant relationships.


The paper describes the displacement function approach first proposed by AJMSpencer for the formulation and solution of problems in second-order elasticitytheory. The displacement function approach for the second-order problem resultsin a single inhomogeneous partial differential equation of the form Rubber-like elastic materials are characterized by their ability to sustain largestrains without fracture and damage. The seminal works of RS Rivlin and co-workerspresented a comprehensive and systematic approach to the description of hyperelasticmaterials, commencing with the formulation of constitutive relations by appeal tothe theory of invariants, the solution of benchmark problems involving homogeneousstrains, inflation and eversion of annular regions, torsion and bending of prismaticbodies, and performing experiments to validate the mathematical approach. Referencesto these accomplishments are also contained in the collected works of RS Rivlinedited by Barenblatt and Joseph  and well221When dealing with hyperelastic materials, it is essential to consider themathematical formulations and the relevant strain energy functions that canaccommodate large strains in a consistent fashion. In addition, the realm ofapplication of the hyperelasticity theory is also important. For example, the formof a strain energy function needed to model very large strains in biological tissues–43, and 44theelastica). An appraisal of the work of Signorini is also provided byCapriz and Podio-Guidugli [pseudo body force term. The procedure was used to examine thesecond-order torsion of a bar with a square cross-section. Hill [The equations governing large strain behavior of rubber-like materials are highlynon-linear and unless recourse is made to computational approaches –59, the 60Guidugli . ReviewsGuidugli ,Green aGuidugli ,SpencerGuidugli , and extGuidugli  presenteGuidugli ,73 were Guidugli  also disGuidugli  continueGuidugli  generaliGuidugli  presenteGuidugli  also useGuidugli  subsequeGuidugli  who reduGuidugli .The proGuidugli  to incluGuidugli  using a Guidugli  investigGuidugli  and the Guidugli  continueGuidugli  examinedon. Hill  re-examion. Hill  and provThe application of a displacement function approach for the analysis of thesecond-order problem for incompressible elastic materials was first identified bySpencer in 1968 see . A formaOther approaches have been used for the formulation and solution of problems insecond-order elasticity theory. For example, Shield  used an 9898In this study, we illustrate the application of Spencer’s displacement functionapproach for the formulation and solution of the second-order problem related toKelvin’s fundamental problem, which deals with the application of a concentratedforce at the interior of an incompressible elastic medium of infinite extent. Thestrain energy function for the elastic medium is assumed to be of the Mooney–Rivlinform. In the case of an incompressible elastic medium, the similarity betweenKelvin’s problem for the concentrated force acting at the interior of an infinitespace region and Boussinesq’s problem for a normal force acting at the surface of anelastic half-space is well known 99,113,114.axially symmetric problems in terms of thedisplacement function approach. We denote particles in the reference configurationby We follow the developments documented in Green and Adkins , Green aWe consider incompressible elastic materials for which,The matrix of physical components of the left Cauchy–Green strain tensor, referred tothe and, using The basis for the method of successive approximations is that the displacement fieldcan be expanded in a power series in terms of a small parameter, where the suffixes For an isotropic incompressible elastic solid, the general form of the constitutiveequation for the symmetric contravariant stress tensor T  can be rwhere The first-order constitutive equation can be reduced to the forms:where The constitutive equations for the second-order stress components can be writtenas:and the components For axial symmetry, the equations of equilibrium for the symmetric contravariantstress Using the expansions in powers of the first-order equations of equilibrium take the forms:and the second-order equations of equilibrium take the forms:where:The second-order equations of equilibrium can be expressed in the forms:first-order problem in incompressibleelasticity, Spencer introduced the approach involving Stokes’ stream function, whichsatisfies the incompressibility condition for any choice of the function. Thisapproach for the first-order problem bears a similarity with the problem of slowviscous flow for Newtonian fluids in terms of Stokes’ stream function .This aon  and the first-orderequations of equilibrium, we arrive at the following partial differential equationsgoverning the first-order displacement function where The extension of the displacement approach to the formulation of the second-orderproblem requires a representation that can exactly satisfy the second-orderincompressibility condition given by As was indicated by Selvadurai and Spencer , there awhere:andBy successively eliminating which govern the axisymmetric second-order problem for an incompressible elasticmaterial. For the solution of specific boundary value problems, both traction and/ordisplacement boundary conditions need to be specified on the deformedboundaries.The development of solutions to the first-order problem is straightforward andeither traction or displacement boundary conditions could be specified onsurfaces referred to the undeformed configuration. In the case of thesecond-order problem, the displacement and traction boundary conditions have tobe specified in relation to surfaces that are prescribed on the deformed body.The components of the traction vector on a surface in the deformed body,resolved in the where:and the traction boundary conditions are normally specified in relation to asurface in the deformed body defined by:From Using these relationships, the expressions (27) can be expressed as:The state of stress in an elastic solid of infinite extent subjected to aconcentrated force of magnitude d Kelvin   satisfy the first- and second-orderincompressibility conditions in andZ-direction is zero, andthere is no second-order contribution to We note that the second-order solution is symmetric about It may be noted that the order of any singularities that may exist in the first-ordersolution –132 is u141Considering the homogeneous Considering the substitution We seek solutions of which can be used to reduce We note that the operators in Solving the resulting ordinary differential equations (ODEs), we obtain thefollowing homogeneous solutions:where andasymmetric aboutWe observe that since where tance d , is givetension in close proximity to a doublet incompression) can be obtained by taking the partialderivative of where where Z-direction .For an incompressible elastic material, the first-order displacement and stresscomponents for the doublet problem can be written as:where:Omitting details, the partial differential equation governing the second-orderdisplacement function The second-order expressions for the displacement and stress components obtained fromthe particular solution of The second-order displacement and stress components (57) satisfy the second-orderincompressibility condition (6) and the second-order equations of equilibrium (23),where:The solution to the problem of an isotropic elastic half-space that is subjected to aconcentrated normal force at the origin of coordinates is identified as Boussinesq’sproblem (Boussinesq ) Figure. The sol98161The application of the theory of second-order elasticity to Boussinesq’s problem is anatural extension of the study dealing with Kelvin’s problem. The first-ordersolution for Boussinesq’s problem is identical in form to Kelvin’s solution given byThe stress field given in r- andz-directions are given by:The components of the unit normal in the which reduces to:The traction-free boundary conditions for the second-order stress components on thedeformed surface of the half-space reduce to:Since The first boundary condition of While this approach is feasible, the divergent integrals can only be evaluatednumerically, which is a limitation. Also, consideration of a hemi-sphericalinclusion at the surface of the half-space results in the first-order solution thatis a series in the Legendre polynomials, which cannot be manipulated easily inconstructing the second-order formulation. Subsequently, the second-order solutionto Boussinesq’s problem for a concentrated normal force was provided in a compactand closed form by Carroll and Rooney , using tThe theory of second-order elasticity is a mathematically consistent theory formodeling hyperelastic materials undergoing moderately large strains, as opposed toeither media exhibiting large deflections and rotations but with small strains orsmall deformations superposed on large. The expansion of the dependent variables interms of a small non-dimensional parameter forms the basis of the approach and if aparticular problem is formulated in a consistent manner, the small parameter willnaturally evolve in the formulation. The solution of problems in second-orderelasticity theory also becomes meaningful in terms of technological applicationsinvolving rubber-like elastic materials used as load bearing components ormountings. Also, when the incompressibility constraint is introduced, the strainenergy function of the Mooney–Rivlin form can completely accommodate thesecond-order moderately large strain phenomena. The formulation and solution ofproblems in second-order elasticity can be facilitated through the use of complexpotentials and complex variable theory, stress functions based on the adaptation ofthe functions proposed by Love, Neuber–Papkovich, and integral transform techniques.Spencer’s displacement function approach is also a convenient method for thetreatment of the second-order incompressible elastic problem and reduces thegoverning partial differential equation for the function to a canonical linear form.A similar result is obtained for the second-order component of the isotropic stress.The displacement function approach is applied to develop solutions to certainaxisymmetric localized loading problems of an infinite space and a half-space. Thefirst-order problem corresponds to the classical elasticity solution and the orderof the stress singularities present in the first-order problems are generallyincreased in the second-order problem. The issue of singularities in the first-ordersolution can be alleviated by selecting suitable boundary conditions where the loadsare applied over finite regions. The ensuing formulations can involve algebraiccomplexity. In such cases the solution of the second-order problem entails a greatdeal of routine mathematical operations and computer-aided symbolic mathematicalmanipulation techniques can be used to solve the second-order problem with speed andaccuracy.


The COVID-19 virus continues to generate waves of infections around the world. With major areas in developing countries still lagging behind in vaccination campaigns, the risk of new variants that can cause re-infections worldwide makes the monitoring and forecasting of the evolution of the virus a high priority. Having accurate models able to forecast the incidence of the spread of the virus provides help to policymakers and health professionals in managing the scarce resources in an optimal way. In this paper, a new machine learning model is proposed to forecast the spread of the virus one-week ahead in a geographic area which combines mobility and COVID-19 incidence data. The area is divided into zones or districts according to the location of the COVID-19 measuring points. A traffic-driven mobility estimate among adjacent districts is proposed to capture the spatial spread of the virus. Traffic-driven mobility in adjacent districts will be used together with COVID-19 incidence data to feed a new deep learning LSTM-based model which will extract patterns from mobility-modulated COVID-19 incidence spatiotemporal data in order to optimize one-week ahead estimations. The model is trained and validated with open data available for the city of Madrid (Spain) for 3 different validation scenarios. A baseline model based on previous literature able to extract temporal patterns in COVID-19 incidence time series is also trained with the same dataset. The results show that the proposed model, based on the combination of traffic and COVID-19 incidence data, is able to outperform the baseline model in all the validation scenarios. The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a respiratory illness. Since the first cases reported in the Chinese province of Wuhan in December 2019, COVID-19 has caused millions of infections and deaths worldwide. The virus has caused an outbreak of viral pneumonia, which has been named coronavirus disease (COVID-19) . In factSeveral methods have been proposed in order to provide accurate estimations for the spread of the COVID-19 virus. Each method has its own requirements, provides a simplification of the underlying process, and tries to provide optimal estimations using the observed information. The different types of methods and models can be grouped in families such as epidemic, simulation-based, statistical, machine learning-based, and hybrid models. Epidemic models characterize the spread of the virus in terms of variables such as the number of infected people, recoveries, deaths, and infection rates. Compartmental-based epidemic models have been largely used, dividing the population into compartments or groups, and the dynamics of the spread of the virus is captured by mathematical expressions which define the movement of individuals among compartments. Examples of compartmental models are the susceptible, infected, and recovered (SIR) model and the susceptible, exposed, infected, and recovered (SEIR) model . SimulatUsing a new deep learning model that combines both traffic and COVID-19 incidence data to optimize one-week ahead COVID-19 forecasting.Using traffic data to estimate mobility among adjacent zones (districts).Enhancing the accuracy of single zone models by combining the temporal patterns in adjacent zones modulated by inter-zone estimated mobility.Validating how the proposed machine learning model is able to learn spatiotemporal patterns from sequences of incidence and traffic-based mobility estimation to forecast the evolution of the COVID-19 pandemic for each zone (district) in a region.The spread of the COVID-19 virus is influenced by both space and time features . The virThe paper is organized as follows. Shallow machine learning models have been studied and validated as effective tools to model the COVID-19 outbreak since the first months of 2020. The authors in  providedDeep learning models have also been applied to the COVID-19 incidence time series data in order to try to optimize predictions. The research in  proposedSeveral research studies have compared the performance of different machine learning models when applied to forecast the evolution of the COVID-19 incidence, recovered cases, and deaths. The study in  investigThe spread of the COVID-19 virus has both temporal influence and spatial influence. Several studies have tried to define models that incorporated spatial information to time series pattern extraction. The authors in  developeThe spatial component in the COVID-19 virus propagation should incorporate the information related to the mobility of the people. The initial lockdowns in different parts of the world were intended to reduce the mobility of the people in order to control the spread of the virus. The authors in  analysedIn this paper, we propose a traffic-driven mobility impact measure among adjacent zones (districts) in a city in order to provide spatial information to a new deep learning model which will use traffic mobility data to complement COVID-19 incidence time series in order to optimize one-week ahead estimations. The proposed model will combine adjacent zone mobility with COVID-19 incidence data in order to feed an LSTM-based RNN network that will extract combined mobility and COVID-19 incidence data from adjacent zones.This section describes the datasets used in this paper to validate the results, the method proposed to estimate the mobility between adjacent zones (districts) based on traffic data, and the proposed machine learning model that combines traffic estimated mobility and COVID-19 incidence data for each zone (district) in order to optimize one-week ahead COVID-19 predictions.Two major datasets are going to be used in order to validate the results in this paper: the traffic data provided as open data for the city of Madrid by the Madrid City Hall and the COVID-19 incidence data for each zone (district) of the city of Madrid provided as open data by the Community of Madrid regional government.Traffic data for the city of Madrid were obtained from . The datThe location of each traffic sensor was obtained from . For eacThe locations of the traffic sensors are shown in The COVID-19 epidemiologic information was obtained from . The datThe datasets in , 32 are In this paper, we are going to use the period from July 2nd 2020 to March 29th 2022 because of the maturity of the data gathering process and since it is the longest homogeneous period in the dataset.b to district a is estimated according toa and b represent 2 adjacent districts (district a and district b)s represents each sensor in district b whose closest district is ais is the traffic intensity measured at sensor sN is the number of sensors sdsb is the distance between sensor s and the centre of district bdab is the distance between the centres of the districts a and biab represents the average weighted traffic intensity for the traffic measured by the sensors in b closest to a weighted by a proximity measure of each sensor to zone aThis section presents a method to estimate an inter-district mobility related indicator based on the average of the traffic intensity for the sensors at each district closest to a particular adjacent district, weighted by the proximity of the sensor to the adjacent district. The idea behind the proposed method is that the traffic that is measured closer to the border of 2 districts is more likely to cross that border (propagating the virus between the 2 districts).. The mobility impact from the traffic in district b whose closest district is a will be used in equation  layers.The model in In order to simplify the optimization process, all the LSTM layers for processing the input signals have been configured with the same internal configuration. The 2 dense layers have also been configured with the same number of neurons. As a future work, other configurations will be tested in order to further optimize results.A grid search approach has been used to train the model in The same optimization process has been carried out for the baseline model in order to provide a fair comparison between models. The model in A 10-fold cross validation approach which randomly splits the data in the dataset into 10 different segments of data. Each data segment is used once as the validation set. Finally, the results are averaged. This validation approach makes it easier for the model to learn the internal patterns in the validation data since there are adjacent similar data samples in the training set.A leave one district out validation approach which uses the entire time series for all the districts except one for training and the left-out district is then used for validation. The process is then repeated for all the districts, and the average of the MSE and MAPE values is computed. This validation approach allows us to assess if time patterns learnt from different zones generalize to new zones.A leave one wave out validation approach which removes the data from an entire wave in the time series for training and uses the information for that wave for validation is used. This approach is used to assess if the patterns learnt from previous waves of data generalize to new waves. The information in the dataset contains data from the second to the sixth wave. The last wave was dominated by the omicron COVID-19 variant and exhibited a particular behaviour. Therefore, the information in the fifth wave has been used to implement this validation approach.Three different validation approaches have been used in order to better assess the results and their generalization:AIr is the average improvement ratev represents each validation approachThe average improvement rates for the 3 validation schemes in terms of MSE values when using traffic information model in  comparedThe geographic locations for the districts with higher improvement rates in The results for the 10-fold cross validation approach for the particular district of Madrid-Salamanca are shown in Figures The results for the leave one district out validation approach for the same district of Madrid-Salamanca are presented in Figures The results for the leave the 5th wave out validation approach are captured in Figures The results in Tables 9This paper has proposed and validated a new deep learning LSTM-based model able to learn from both human mobility and COVID-19 incidence time series. The model processes COVID-19 geolocated information by dividing a geographical area into zones or districts and performing their independent COVID-19 detection of new cases. Traffic dada are used to estimate the degree of interaction between adjacent districts in order to modulate the influence of the current COVID-19 incidence values from adjacent districts when forecasting the number of new cases in the district of interest. The spatiotemporal COVID-19 incidence information for each adjacent district is processed together with the estimated mobility data using an LSTM layer. The output for each district is summarized by a dense (fully connected) layer, and combined patterns are extracted by processing together the information from all the adjacent districts using fully connected layers.The proposed model has been trained with open data for the city of Madrid and has been validated using 3 different validation approaches: 10-fold cross validation, leave one district out, and leave one COVID-19 wave out. The mean square error (MSE) and the mean absolute percentage error (MAPE) values have been compared with a baseline model used in previous literature and optimized and trained for the same dataset. The proposed model has outperformed the baseline model by reducing the MSE in 4.37, 6.01, and 2.40 times correspondently. Results show that adjacent geographical zones have an influence in the spread of the virus and that the estimation of mobility between zones helps in improving the achieved accuracy.The current model only uses mobility estimates for adjacent zones. As a future work, a new model to estimate mobility for non-adjacent zones will be studied. The current model is based on traffic mobility data. There also exist open datasets capturing pedestrian mobility and shared bike mobility. As a future work, these datasets will be used to enhance the mobility estimation model. Finally, there are other factors that influence the propagation of the virus such as the use of masks and the percentage of people vaccinated. As a future work, the model will be expanded to use vaccination and use of mask data as inputs to complement the mobility information to better estimate the propagation of the COVID-19 virus.


The Cornell Scale for Depression in Dementia (CSDD) was developed to measure depressive symptoms among older adults with dementia. The psychometric qualities of the CSDD have been inconsistent regarding the factor structure, with some studies showing a four-factor model and others a five-factor model. The purpose of this study was to test the factor structure of the CSDD as a measure of depression among a sample of assisted living residents. It was hypothesized that a four-factor version of the CSDD would provide a better fit than a five-factor version of the CSDD. The present study used baseline data from the Function-Focused Care for Assisted Living Using the Evidence Integration Triangle (FFC-AL-EIT) intervention study. A total of 511 residents from 85 assisted living facilities were included in the analyses. Confirmatory factor analyses were conducted to examine the factor structure and a chi-square difference test was conducted to compare model fit. Three items were removed from both models due to small factor loadings. The chi-square difference test indicated that the five-factor model fit the data significantly better  than the four-factor model, although both the five-factor and four-factor models produced very poor model fits. These findings may be due to the fact that the CSDD relies on information from caregivers, and the measure might benefit from including observational signs of depression. Future work should examine other factors or items that belong in a depression measure among assisted living residents.


Frontiers in Cardiovascular Medicine: Rising Stars 2021. The goal of this Research Topic is to promote the high-quality work of researchers at the early stages of their careers. The publications in this collection were selected based on their advancement in cardiovascular medicine and the research potential of the investigators. Here we celebrate the achievements of early-career investigators who thrive in the increasing hardships of academic research, including the fierce competition to secure research grant funding, and the publish-or-perish lifestyle of research dissemination . This original report demonstrates that pro-inflammatory factors such as MMP-1 and IFN-γ positively correlate with each other within valvular tissue and contribute to the localized degradation of collagen. Understanding the underlying mechanisms responsible for leaflet integrity disruption not only advances the fundamental insights into complications of PMV, but also is important for developing treatment strategies to treat mitral valve disease.Mechanoregulation of Vascular Endothelial Growth Factor Receptor 2 in Angiogenesis, by Miller and Sewell-Loftin. Angiogenesis is essential for many cardiovascular diseases , National Natural Science Foundation of China (82020108002 to JX), Innovation Program of Shanghai Municipal Education Commission (2017-01-07-00-09-E00042 to JX), the grant from Science and Technology Commission of Shanghai Municipality (21XD1421300 and 20DZ2255400 to JX), Natural Science Foundation of Shanghai (19ZR1474100 to LW), and the Dawn Program of Shanghai Education Commission (19SG34 to JX).The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article, or claim that may be made by its manufacturer, is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.


Identifying a feasible model of chronic schizophrenia would be valuable for studying the possible underlying mechanism and to investigate emerging treatments. Our hypothesis starts from the observation that combining ketamine with isolation could result in long-lasting neuro-psychological deficits and schizophrenia-like features; thus, it could probably be used as the first model of chronic schizophrenia that emphasizes the characteristic of having a multifactorial etiologycreation of a complex animal model capable of exhibiting the multifactorial origin and manifestation of schizophrenia.we investigated the effects of ketamine administration combined with isolation in inducing schizophrenia-like symptoms in male albino rats and the brain reactive oxygen species levels.Our results showed that the number of lines crossings in the open field test, the number of open arm entries in the elevated plus maze, and the spontaneous alternations percentage in the Y-maze were significantly lower in the ketamine + isolation group compared to both the control and ketamine + social housing group (p < 0.05). Furthermore, the ketamine + isolation intervention significantly increased the MDA levels and decreased the GPx levels both in the hippocampus and the cortex of the rats. In addition, our premise of creating a model capable of exhibiting both positive and negative symptoms of schizophrenia was also based on adding the aripiprazole treatment to a group of ratscombining ketamine with isolation could result in long-lasting neuro-psychological deficits and schizophrenia-like featuresNo significant relationships.


Multi-user multiple-input multiple-output (MU-MIMO) technology can significantly improve the spectral and energy efficiencies of wireless networks. In the uplink MU-MIMO systems, the optimal precoder design at the base station utilizes the Lagrange multipliers method and the centralized iterative algorithm to minimize the mean squared error (MSE) of all users under the power constraint. The precoding matrices need to be fed back to the user equipment to explore the potential benefits of the joint transceiver design. We propose a CNN-based compression network named PCQNet to minimize the feedback overhead. We first illustrate the effect of the trainable compression ratios and feedback bits on the MSE between the original precoding matrices and the recovered ones. We then evaluate the block error rates as the performance measure of the centralized implementation with an optimal minimum mean-squared error (MMSE) transceiver. Numerical results show that the proposed PCQNet achieves near-optimal performance compared with other quantized feedback schemes and significantly reduces the feedback overhead with negligible performance degradation. In recent years, the multi-user multiple-input multiple-output (MU-MIMO) technology has offered great advantages over conventional point-to-point MIMO systems due to its improvement on the spectral and the energy efficiencies ,2. SpeciNowadays, the joint optimization of the transceiver has attracted increasing research activities as an effective interference management technique for the uplink MU-MIMO systems . Since tThe online implementation of the centralized solution with the optimal MMSE receiver requires the necessary information feedback for the user equipment (UE) to perform real-time updating, whereas the offline one requires the feedback of the optimal precoding matrix. With the subsequent development of beyond fifth-generation (B5G) or sixth-generation (6G) technologies, the dimensions of the precoding matrices scales with the number of antennas, which gradually become rather large ,11. The Limited feedback of precoding techniques has been intensively investigated to reduce the feedback overhead in the uplink wireless communication systems ,13,14, wRecently, as the success of deep learning reaches more fields, the neural-network-based auto-encoder has been recently applied to enhance the performance of MU-MIMO systems in ,17,18. IWe propose a CNN-based architecture named PCQNet to produce the data-bearing bitstreams for each UE to recover the precoding matrices. It can achieve near-optimal performance and further reduce the feedback overhead compared with the existing 3GPP codebook scheme in certain scenarios.We develop a general trainable compression and quantization framework for the precoding matrices in the uplink MU-MIMO systems. The proposed PCQNet architecture as well as the Lloyd-Max quantization scheme can flexibly adjust the feedback overhead by training an auto-encoder.The precoding matrices with different compression ratios (CRs) are evaluated on the performance of the centralized implementation with an optimal MMSE transceiver. As far as we know, the effect of the feedback accuracy on the performance has not been investigated before. Specifically, we explore the trade-off between the block error rates (BLER) and the CRs of the precoding matrices.Multiple works of the transceiver optimization are limited to single-user scenarios or the particular MU multiple-input single-output (MISO) systems ,24. We fThe remainder of this article is organized as follows: Notations: Symbols for matrices (vectors) are denoted by boldface upper (lower) case letters. In this section, we introduce a simple signal model of an uplink MU-MIMO system, the joint transceiver design and the channel models.K UEs as depicted in k-th UE equipped with k-th UE to the BS.Without loss of generality, we consider the uplink MU-MIMO system consisting of one BS equipped with k-th  between the recovered precoding matrices and the original ones. A smaller value of m reflects lower feedback overhead of the precoding matrices. The binary vector k-th UE.The CR and the number of quantization bits k-th UE outputs the restored complex-valued precoding matrix The decoder network at the In the offline stage, we compute the precoding matrices in advance by the aforementioned Algorithm 1 and generate the training, testing, and evaluation datasets. In the online stage, we can directly obtain the low dimensional feedback bitstreams with the well-trained neural network. The gradient of the quantization module is treated as a constant to make the network differentiable, and for this reason the encoder and the recovery network can be trained end-to-end. We jointly optimized the encoder and the decoder modules with back-propagation and gradients can pass through the quantization layer during back-propagation.We formulate the feedback of the precoding matrices into a reconstruction problem by The PCQNet is trained and evaluated on an Nvidia GeForce 3090 platform. We use the Adam  optimizei represents the index of the standard precoding matrix defined in the 3GPP protocol supporting limited scenarios  as much as possible. The Lloyd-Max quantization scheme stores the designed codebooks and partitions at the UEs and the BS, thus the BS only needs to transmit the indexes to specify the precoding matrices.In the offline stage, we first acquire the datasets generated by Algorithm 1. The empirical probability distribution function of the real and the imaginary parts of the precoding matrices is obtained for the design of the Lloyd-Max quantizer in ,28,29. TIn the online stage, the UEs can readily recover the precoding matrices utilizing the received indexes with the prestored Lloyd-Max quantization partitions and codebooks. Each element in the precoding matrices has to be quantized individually, thus the minimum number of feedback bits is We consider the optimal scheme labeled as w/o compression which directly feeds back the precoding matrices without compression.In this section, we evaluate the NMSE of the precoding matrices with different CRs and the influence of the feedback accuracy on the BLER performance. The comprehensive performance comparisons of the uplink MU-MIMO system with different number of UEs, different modulation orders, and different channel models are provided. The uplink MU-MIMO system parameters and the coefficients of the channel coding are listed in L channel realizations L data frames from the iMaster NAIE platform [L training data We firstly generate platform  for the k-th UE is randomly picked from the set of At the training and evaluation stage for the networks, the precoding matrix LloydMax scheme is depicted in The NMSE performance between the recovered and the original precoding matrices utilizing the The NMSE performance of the LloydMax scheme and the PCQNet is not correlated with SNRs. Only the generation of different test datasets is related to SNRs and the testing of NMSE performance is not necessarily related to the value of the SNRs. We provide a guideline for subsequent research of BLER performance via the visualization of NMSE performance in The codebook-based LloydMax scheme is sensitive to the number of bits, the SNRs, and the realistic channel distribution. The NMSE will significantly drop when the k-th UE. The number of the feedback bits for the 3GPP codebook scheme is We compare the PCQNet with the aforementioned baselines as depicted in The proposed PCQNet can dramatically decrease the feedback overhead and exhibit a slight BLER degradation with the further reduction of feedback bits  as well as the NAIE channel in practical scenarios provided by the iMaster NAIE platform .The LloydMax scheme has to design multiple codebooks which are optimized for specific channel conditions. The best NMSE performance can be achieved when the Compared with the w/o compression scheme which fully attains the precoding matrix, the CNN-based PCQNet can enhance the recovery quality of the precoding matrix with adaptive feedback overhead and obtain near optimal reconstruction performance. Similar performance can be seen over the NAIE channel in The PCQNet achieves the near-optimal BLER performance when the NMSE of the recovered precoding matrix is lower than −20 dB. The transmission tends to stop if the NMSE of the recovered precoding matrices is worse than the threshold of −5 dB. We also observe that, when the NMSE performance exceeds a certain threshold , the overall BLER performance is quite close to the ideal w/o compression scheme. From the results, we can see that it is a reasonable compromise to set the CR to 1/4 for the compression of precoding matrices.The provided numerical results show that our proposed PCQNet achieves a better trade-off between the feedback overhead and the BLER performance over the i.i.d. Rayleigh channel and the NAIE channel. This CNN-based compression scheme significantly enhances the BLER performance compared with the 3GPP codebook scheme and the LloydMax scheme under the same CRs.The proposed PCQNet has achieved considerable gains in BLER performance compared with the protocol codebook-based precoding scheme and the Lloyd-Max quantization scheme under the same CRs. The adaptability of trainable PCQNet architecture to different channel bandwidths is more competitive than the Lloyd-Max quantization scheme in bandwidth-limited scenarios. The PCQNet also provides better resilience to the mismatch between the trained SNRs and tested SNRs than the Lloyd-Max quantization scheme due to channel variations. Our experiments demonstrate that the application of the CNN-based PCQNet greatly improves the adaptability and the generality of the precoding matrix feedback in the uplink MU-MIMO systems. Importantly, it preserves only a slight degradation of BLER performance with high compression rate of the precoding matrix, making the compression architecture more attractive for the deployment of practical systems.


The main goal of this study is to evaluate the field performance of crumb-rubber-modified asphalt mixtures used as a surface layer on high-volume traffic roads. For this purpose, several road sections were constructed under different climate conditions and using control mixtures  and crumb-rubber-modified mixtures. After the construction of the different road sections, cores were taken at different periods of their service life (up to 63 months) and they were tested in the laboratory in order to assess the evolution of the density, stiffness and fatigue resistance of the layers. Based on the results obtained from tests, it can be concluded that under real severe traffic and climate conditions, asphalt mixtures manufactured with crumb-rubber-modified bitumen offer ageing and mechanical performance very similar to that offered by asphalt mixtures manufactured with traditional SBS-modified bitumen. Based on these considerations, this application can be an interesting solution to minimize environmental problems caused by end-of-life tires in landfills. End-of-life tires are one of the most widely produced types of solid waste around the world . They arIts application as a modifier in bituminous mixtures permits the recovery of this waste in huge quantities, helping to contribute to circular economy principles . In addition, many laboratory studies have demonstrated that the use of crumb rubber as a modifier of asphalt mixtures improves their resistance to fatigue cracking ,9 and toAfter decades of use, there are many experiences that have already proven the advantages of the application of crumb rubber from end-of-life tires as a bituminous mixture modifier ,22,23,24In order to determine in depth the real performance of crumb-rubber-modified asphalt mixtures, during the last few years, the road administration of the government of Andalusia (Spain) has applied them on the surface layers of some highway sections that experience high volumes of traffic and unfavorable climate conditions. To evaluate these materials, a study on the evolution of the mechanical performance of them during their service life in comparison to traditional SBS-modified material has been carried out in collaboration with the Laboratory of Construction Engineering of the University of Granada. For this purpose, cores directly extracted from the surface layer of the pavement at different dates were tested at the laboratory, determining the evolution of important parameters such as density, stiffness or fatigue cracking resistance. This paper summarizes the main results obtained in this research work so far.This paper is focused on the study of 3 sections of the high-traffic-capacity road network of Andalusia (Spain), on the A-316 highway (Jaen) and A-92 highway . The main characteristics of these highway sections are summarized in All these sections were constructed using a surface layer of 3 cm thickness and using different job mix formulas of BBTM 11B PMB 45/80-60 C . In allDuring the service life of the three highway sections studied, cores from the surface layers were extracted at different times . A totalThe superficial aspects of the highway sections studied during the last campaign are shown in Once the cylindrical cores were obtained from the road on the different dates, their apparent density (according to UNE-EN 12697-6  for specThe evolution of the stiffness of the layers as a function of the service life is shown in -The density of the surface layers studied was not affected by the service life (being constant over time and very similar to those reached after the pavement’s construction), regardless of the type of asphalt binder used (SBS or crumb-rubber-modified).-The stiffness of the surface layers studied was significantly affected by the service life due to the effects of the environmental agents. The mixture BBTM 11B showed a rate of stiffness increment between 43 and 105 MPa per month, but we did not observe a clear dependence of this rate on the type of binder used or the climate conditions in the highway section studied. Thus, it can be concluded that surface asphalt mixtures manufactured with SBS or crumb-rubber-modified binders offer a similar stiffening process during their service life.-The results obtained in terms of long-term resistance (fatigue cracking) also demonstrated that the mixtures manufactured with SBS or crumb-rubber-modified binders offer similar performance. In both types of materials and in the three highway sections studied, it was observed that during the first 20–40 months of service life (depending on the volume of traffic supported), the surface asphalt mixtures increased in resistance to fatigue loading (due to the strain hardening phenomenon), and after this period, they became susceptible to fatigue damage .This paper summarizes the results obtained in a research study whose main objective was to carry out an in-depth analysis of the mechanical performance of crumb-rubber-modified bitumen under severe traffic and climate conditions in real road pavements. For this purpose, cores were extracted on different dates from the surface layers of three highway sections that were constructed using a crumb-rubber-modified bitumen (PMB 45/80-60 C), and they were compared with cores extracted on the same date and at the same location from surface layers constructed with SBS-modified bitumen (PMB 45/80-60). These cores were tested at the laboratory to determine their density (UNE-EN 12697-6), stiffness  and resistance to fatigue (UGR-FACT). From the results obtained in this study, the following conclusions can be drawn:The results obtained in the study presented show that, under real severe traffic and climate conditions, the asphalt mixtures manufactured with crumb-rubber-modified bitumen offer ageing and mechanical performance very similar to that offered by asphalt mixtures manufactured with traditional high-performance SBS-modified bitumen. As future research, it would be interesting to continue this study by adding aspects related to the serviceability of pavements and road safety, such as IRI or skid resistance, and applying a life cycle cost analysis to determine the materials’ real efficiency.


The reception of a patient in the psychiatric ward is an important step that determines the proper course of care. The welcome is the first stage of the relationship, it is essential to take the measure of the importance of this moment.Assess psychiatric inpatients’ knowledge of their rights and obligations.This was a descriptive and cross-sectional study based on a self-administered questionnaire containing about twenty questions (20), which assessed the knowledge of patients hospitalized in the HMPIT psychiatry department about their rights and obligations.Twenty-five (25) patients agreed to answer the questionnaire and two (2) patients refused. Sixty percent (60%) of the patients were unaware of their rights. Sixty-eight percent (68%) of the patients did not know their duties. Forty-eight percent (48%) of the patients did not know the rules and conditions of hospitalization in psychiatry.Patients hospitalized in the psychiatric ward have limited knowledge about their rights and duties and about the conditions and rules governing hospitalization. In addition to the poster on patients’ rights and duties, a welcome leaflet will provide all the information on the rules of hospitalization.


Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic a mental health deterioration has been detected in the general population and especially in people affected by pre-existing psychiatric conditions, and mental health care has moved towards online treatment. Literature studies have been reviewed to gather evidence regarding the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on people affected by eating disorders (EDs) exploring changes in ED-specific and general psychopathology; mechanisms of vulnerability and resilience; change in treatment delivery service; patients’ perception of online treatment and potential barriers and/or advantages of this method and its effectiveness. A wide variability characterized the response of people with EDs to the COVID-19 pandemic. A trend toward worsening of ED specific psychopathology with respect to the pre-pandemic period was observed as well as a deterioration in general psychiatric symptoms. Feelings of uncertainty and social isolation were the most common vulnerability mechanisms. Resilience factors such as heightened self-care and reduced social pressure also occurred. The treatment has largely switched to online delivering strategies which, despite considered the best alternative to the face-to-face approach, were suffering from some concerns about their quality. The exacerbation of specific and general psychopathology supports the hypothesis of an emotional and post-traumatic nature of EDs and outlines the importance of internalizing symptoms. In front of the great variability observed across ED patients during the pandemic, the identification of risk and resilience variables as well as of subjective factors affecting the perception of online treatment may inform clinicians and promote more targeted and individualized approaches.No significant relationships.


Bioscience Reports at the request of the authors following receipt of a notification from a reader alerting the Editorial Office to western blot bands that appear in both this paper and another paper by different authors (doi: 10.1186/s12935-019-0985-9). The authors wish to retract the article. The Editor-in-Chief and Editorial Board agree with the retraction.This Retraction follows an Expression of Concern relating to this article previously published by Portland Press. This article is being retracted from


Burden of disease analyses measure the healthy years of life lost due to living with and dying prematurely from disease and injury. It is now the global standard for comparable policy-relevant evidence on the impact of disease, injuries, and risks on a population. The Australian Burden of Disease Study (ABDS), undertaken by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, uses Australian-specific data and methods  to quantify disease burden for Australia. Despite the high quality of deaths registration data in Australia, in burden of disease analyses not all coded causes of death are considered appropriate or valid to estimate years of life lost (YLL). Therefore, these ‘ill-defined deaths’ are redistributed to one or more diseases on the ABDS disease list according to a more probable underlying cause of death. In the latest ABDS, almost 1 in 10 deaths in 2018 was an ill-defined death. Most of these were redistributed to other diseases using one of three methods developed for the Study:1) direct evidence on more plausible causes of death from data linkage studies or other sources2) redistribution algorithms based on the distribution of underlying causes of death where the ill-defined cause was recorded as an associated cause of death3) reassignment of deaths across a specified range of target diseases according to patterns of causes of death observed in the mortality data for the ABDS disease list.Expert advice was also received on the redistribution of deaths from septicaemia and deaths coded to ICD-10 code X59 Exposure to unspecified factor. Overall, 8.5% of the years of life lost for Australia in 2018 came from ill-defined deaths. These deaths generally followed age-specific all-cause mortality patterns. It is important to consider methods and target diseases when redistributing ill-defined deaths to appropriately quantify their contribution to disease-specific burden.


In this paper, a low-altitude wind speed estimation method based on the fuselage frustum conformal array system is proposed. Firstly, based on the signal model of the fuselage conformal array radar, the four-dimensional joint phase compensation of the echo data in the Doppler domain and three-dimensional space-frequency domain is performed by using the four-dimensional frequency domain compensation method. Secondly, the clutter covariance matrix is estimated by the compensated echo data, and a space-time Adaptive Processing (STAP) processor suitable for low-altitude windshear target is constructed to suppress clutter. Finally, the maximum Doppler value of each distance cell is extracted, and the wind velocity is estimated. Simulation results show that the proposed method can effectively suppress clutter and accurately estimate wind speed. Low-altitude windshear is an atmospheric phenomenon in which the airflow below 600 m in height hits the ground and spreads in all directions . Sudden Airborne weather radar is an important tool for pilots to detect weather phenomena ahead of the aircraft during flight missions, and pilots can avoid severe weather phenomena such as low-altitude windshear on time based on the display and alerts from the airborne weather radar to ensure the safety of the entire mission . With thWhen an airborne weather radar detects a low-altitude windshear target ahead, the widely distributed and strong ground clutter tends to drown out the low-altitude windshear signal, making it difficult to achieve wind speed estimation, so clutter suppression before wind speed estimation is especially important. In the forward-looking working state of airborne weather radar, the clutter distribution characteristics of the echo signal of each distance unit vary with the change of distance unit, especially in the near-ground distance unit performance is more dramatic, this phenomenon is called clutter range dependence. The inhomogeneity of clutter caused by range dependence makes the echo signal data samples of each distance unit no longer satisfy the independent identically distributed condition, which causes the deterioration in the performance of traditional clutter suppression methods and the degradation in target detection performance. At present, the compensation methods used for the clutter inhomogeneity problem are mainly Doppler compensation type methods, such as the DW method , the HODA method is proposed to estimate the wind speed of low-altitude windshear in the fuselage frustum conformal array system for the problem that the useful signal will be affected by strong ground clutter when the low-altitude windshear is detected by fuselage frustum conformal array weather radar. The method is based first on the essential reason for the difficulty of clutter suppression caused by the special array structure of the fuselage frustum conformal array, and then uses the four-dimensional frequency domain compensation method for joint phase compensation of the echo data of each distance unit in the Doppler domain and the three-dimensional space-frequency domain. Secondly, the compensated echo data samples are used to estimate the clutter covariance matrix and construct a Space-Time Adaptive Processing (STAP) processor for low-altitude windshear target to accumulate windshear signals while adaptively suppressing ground clutter. Finally, the maximum Doppler value of each distance unit is extracted to achieve the accurate estimation of wind field velocity. The simulation results show that the method can effectively achieve ground clutter suppression and accurate wind speed estimation.When the fuselage frustum conformal array detects the low-altitude windshear target, the echo mainly consists of three parts: ground clutter signal Assuming that the number of transmitted pulses in one coherent processing time of the radar is K, the space-time two-dimensional data received by the The ground clutter signal rd model  developeFirstly, the width of a single distance unit is determined based on the radar-related parameters of the airborne platform. Then, the horizontal azimuth is divided within the single distance unit, the ground clutter echo signal within the single distance unit is divided into multiple clutter patches, and the echo signal of each clutter patch is calculated. Finally, the echoes of all clutter patches on the single distance unit are summed to obtain the ground clutter echo signal Assuming that the ground clutter signal is undulation-free and unambiguous, the ground clutter signal Supposing that Suppose the radius of the bottom surface of the frustum is rived as :(4)p, it can be seen that the normalized space-frequency For the line array antenna, the geometric distribution of the array elements in space is one-dimensional. Assuming that the line array axis is in line with the positive direction of ion (13) :(15)Fd−lFor the planar array antenna, the geometric distribution of its array elements in space is two-dimensional. Assuming that the length of the planar array is in line with the positive direction of the ion (13) :(16)Fd−pAs for the fuselage frustum conformal array, the antenna array elements are geometrically distributed in space as three-dimensional space, so its clutter distribution characteristic needs to be described in four-dimensional space ion (13) :(17)Fd−fFrom Equation (17), it can be seen that the range of values of The analysis of the clutter characteristics of the fuselage frustum conformal array shows that the clutter characteristics are determined by the four-dimensional frequency The four-dimensional frequency domain compensation method requires joint compensation in the four spaces of Doppler domain In the Doppler domain Assuming that the azimuth of the main beam is The normalized Doppler frequency To make the Then the compensation matrix In the space domain At this point, the normalized space domain frequency The normalized space domain frequency To make the center of the clutter spectrum of the Then the space domain compensation matrix In which In the space domain At this point, the normalized space domain frequency The normalized space domain frequency To make the Then, the space domain compensation matrix In which In the space domain At this point, the normalized space domain frequency The normalized space domain frequency To make the Then, the space domain compensation matrix In which From Equations (21), (25), (29), and (33), the compensation matrix essed as ,27:(34)βIn which Suppose that the echo data of the After compensation, the inhomogeneity of the clutter in the echo data samples caused by the fuselage frustum conformal array structure is improved. The data of the The space-time adaptive processor technique is based on space-time coupling characteristics of the echo to perform clutter suppression and signal matching , and theIn which Taking the estimated By matching the filtering of target signals in different Doppler bands and solving the output signal power value of the optimal processor, the processor can effectively suppress ground clutter and accumulate windshear signals when the output power is maximum. Then, the Doppler frequency of the distance unit under detection is searched in one dimension, and the estimated Doppler frequency Finally, the echo data of all the distance units of the fuselage frustum conformal array are subjected to optimal space-time adaptive processing, and the wind field velocity is estimated, so that the variation of the low-altitude windshear wind speed can be derived for different distance units.Step 1: Compensate the echo data by four-dimensional frequency domain compensation method to remove the inhomogeneity of ground clutter caused by the structure of the fuselage frustum conformal array;Step 2: Estimate the clutter covariance matrix of the distance unit under detection from the echo data samples of the reference distance unit;Step 3: Construct the space-time adaptive processor, solve the optimal weight vector of the processor, complete clutter suppression and signal matching, estimate the center frequency of the low-altitude windshear signal within the present distance unit, then get the wind speed estimation result;Step 4: Update the distance unit under detection and deal with the echo data samples of all distance units within the radar operating range to get the final wind speed estimation result.The values of the main simulation parameters of the radar system are shown in As can be seen from After compensating the echo signal by the four-dimensional frequency domain compensation method proposed in this paper, the clutter range dependence of the near-ground distance unit has been suppressed in For the problem that the useful signal is affected by strong ground clutter when detecting low-altitude windshear, a method for estimating low-altitude windshear wind speed in the fuselage frustum conformal array system is proposed. The method introduces the fuselage frustum conformal array and analyzes the essential reasons for the difficulty of clutter suppression in the fuselage frustum conformal array. Then, it uses a four-dimensional frequency domain compensation method to combine the phase compensation of the echo data of each distance unit in the Doppler domain and the three-dimensional space-frequency domain. After that, it estimates the clutter covariance matrix from the compensated echo data samples and constructs a space-time adaptive processor applicable to the low-altitude windshear target. Finally, it extracts the maximum Doppler value of each distance unit after adaptively suppressing the ground clutter to achieve the accurate estimation of wind field velocity. The simulation results show that the method can effectively suppress the ground clutter and accurately estimate the wind speed in the fuselage frustum conformal array system.


There is no life without cells and there are no cells without membranes. On the other side, there would be no full knowledge of the mechanisms of the actions of a drug without a deeper understanding of its interaction with membranes. In this context, the second edition of the Special Issue on drug–membrane interactions highlights the importance of the interactions of drugs with membranes to better understand a drug’s mechanism of action at the molecular level . The traet al. evaluated the protective effect of two antioxidants, melatonin and indole-3-propionic acid (IPA), against oxidative damage to membrane lipids, induced by high concentrations of iron, in porcine skin. Both antioxidants were shown to be efficient in the reduction of lipid peroxidation. The authors concluded the two compounds are potential therapeutic agents to treat disorders associated with excessive iron accumulation in the skin [Rynkowska Menna and co-workers studied the interaction of dendritic cells (DCs) with the Blood–brain barrier (BBB) in steady-state conditions. The authors observed that transmigrated DCs exhibit an activated phenotype and a stronger T cell-stimulatory capacity when compared to non-migrating DCs. The results obtained are of the utmost importance for the design of novel targeted therapies capable of inhibiting autoimmune inflammation of the central nervous system .in vitro and in vivo studies and, in some cases, molecular docking studies were performed. The findings reported allowed for the prediction of potential herb–drug/drug–drug interactions of garcinol for safe clinical use [The study conducted by Bolla and co-workers reports the inhibitory effect of garcinol formulations in the activity of cytochrome P450 isozymes and P-glycoprotein (P-gP). Both The work reported by Wang describes the effects of potassium ions on surface pressure isotherms, elastic modulus and the stability of DPPC/Cholesterol and DPPC/Cholesterol/Amphotericin B monolayers using Langmuir-Blodgett methodology . The resThe investigation of this enthusiastic topic has just started and a long path needs to be done to develop novel drugs with even more efficacy and safety for the global health benefit.