Search Results (32)

Background: Although the Profile of Mood States has been proposed by the Initiative on Methods, Measurement, and Pain Assessment in Clinical Trials (IMMPACT) to measure emotional functioning in chronic pain patients, it has not yet been validated in these patients. Objective: To confirm the factor structure and internal consistency of the Shortened Version of the Profile of Mood States (37 items) in patients with chronic pain. Methods: A confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was conducted to test the theoretical structure of six factors that result in a Total Mood Disturbance episode: Tension–Anxiety (six items), Depression–Dejection (eight items), Anger–Hostility (seven items), Vigor–Activity (six items), Fatigue–Inertia (five items), and Confusion–Bewilderment (five items). Participants: A total of 588 patients with chronic pain from Spanish primary care health and community centers completed the questionnaire. Results: The factors presented adequate reliability coefficients, McDonald’s Omega (ω) between 0.77 and 0.91, and appropriate average discrimination indexes (D), ranging from 0.35 to 0.67. The Total Mood Disturbance yielded excellent results, ω = 0.95, D = 0.61. The original structure was confirmed, ECVI = 4.361 (saturated ECVI = 2.395; independent ECVI = 21.855); RMSEA = 0.070, 90% CI [0.067, 0.072]; GFI = 0.974; AGFI = 0.971; CFI = 0.853; NFI = 0.812; and NNFI = 0.843. Conclusions: The Shortened Version of the Profile of Mood States has been proven to be a valid and reliable measure of emotional functioning in chronic pain patients. Full article

The UNESCO site of Arslantepe is located in Eastern Anatolia in the Malatya Plain (Türkiye) about 10 km from the Euphrates River. Here for about a century archaeological excavations have been carried out, reconstructing a long sequence of human frequentation starting from 5000 years BC up to the Middle Ages. The settlement, one of the most important and largest in the region, has undergone numerous changes over time, resulting in a complex superposition of structures, palaces, temples, and burials concentrated on the hill. With the aim of extending the knowledge of the site, in 2022, geophysical surveys were carried out through the application of electrical resistivity tomography, covering a surface of approximately 4300 m² in an unexplored area at the foot of the hill. In this paper, the Extended data-adaptive Probability-based Electrical Resistivity Tomography Inversion approach (E-PERTI), recently published as a development of the probability tomography imaging approach, has been applied to a large apparent resistivity field dataset, providing the best estimate of the most probable estimate of the resistivity distribution through an intrinsic linear regression model implementing standard least squares routines. The results seem to prove the effectiveness of the E-PERTI approach in noise dejection, enhancing associated resistivity highs that can be ascribable to the trace of a potential fortification. The obtained information represents new, unexpected data that open new frontiers of archaeological research, adding value to the knowledge of the site. Full article

Forest recreation can be successfully used for psychological relaxation and can serve as a remedy for common stress-related problems. The special form of forest recreation intended for restoration is forest bathing. These activities might be disrupted by some factors, such as viewing buildings in the forest or using a computer in nature, which interrupt psychological relaxation. One factor that might interrupt psychological relaxation is the occurrence of an open dump in the forest during an outdoor experience. To test the hypothesis that an open dump might decrease psychological relaxation, a case study using a randomized, controlled crossover design was conducted. For this purpose, two groups of healthy young adults viewed a control forest or a forest with an open dump in reverse order and filled in psychological questionnaires after each stimulus. Participants wore oblique eye patches to stop their visual stimulation before the experimental stimulation, and the physical environment was monitored. The results were analyzed using the two-way repeated measures ANOVA. The measured negative psychological indicators significantly increased after viewing the forest with waste, and the five indicators of the Profile of Mood States increased: tension–anxiety, depression–dejection, anger–hostility, fatigue, and confusion. In addition, the negative aspect of the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule increased in comparison to the control and pretest. The measured positive indicators significantly decreased after viewing the forest with waste, the positive aspect of the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule decreased, and the Restorative Outcome Scale and Subjective Vitality scores decreased (in comparison to the control and pretest). The occurrence of an open dump in the forest might interrupt a normal restorative experience in the forest by reducing psychological relaxation. Nevertheless, the mechanism of these relevancies is not known, and thus, it will be further investigated. In addition, in a future study, the size of the impact of these open dumps on normal everyday experiences should be investigated. It is proposed that different mechanisms might be responsible for these reactions; however, the aim of this study is to only measure this reaction. The identified psychological reasons for these mechanisms can be assessed in further studies. Full article

Probiotic-fermented milk is commonly used to maintain intestinal health. However, the effects of heat-treated fermented milk, which does not contain live microorganisms, on intestinal function are not yet fully understood. This study aimed to investigate whether heat-treated Lactobacillus helveticus CP790-fermented milk affects fecal microbiota and gut health as a “postbiotic”. A randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial was conducted in healthy Japanese individuals aged 20–59 years with a tendency toward constipation. Participants consumed 100 mL of either the test beverage (n = 60) or placebo beverage (n = 60) for four weeks. The test beverages were prepared with heat-treated CP790-fermented milk, while the placebo beverages were prepared with nonfermented milk flavored with lactic acid. Fecal samples were analyzed using 16S rRNA gene sequencing. Constipation symptoms were assessed using defecation logs and the Patient Assessment of Constipation Symptoms (PAC-SYM) questionnaire. Mood state was also assessed using the Profile of Mood States 2 (POMS2) questionnaire to explore its potential as a “psychobiotic”. Desulfobacterota were significantly decreased by CP790-fermented milk intake. PICRUSt2 analysis predicted a decrease in the proportion of genes involved in the sulfate reduction pathway following the consumption of CP790-fermented milk. The CP790-fermented milk intervention significantly improved stool consistency and straining during defecation. These improvements were correlated with a decrease in Desulfobacterota. After the intervention, overall mood, expressed as total mood disturbance, and depression–dejection were significantly better in the CP790 group than in the placebo group. These results suggest that the intake of CP790-fermented milk could be effective in modulating gut microbiota and improving constipation symptoms and mood states. Full article

Autonomous vehicles (AVs) play a crucial role in enhancing urban mobility within the context of a smarter and more connected urban environment. Three-dimensional object detection in AVs is an essential task for comprehending the driving environment to contribute to their safe use in urban environments. Existing 3D LiDAR object detection systems lose many critical point features during the down-sampling process and neglect the crucial interactions between local features, providing insufficient semantic information and leading to subpar detection performance. We propose a dynamic feature abstraction with self-attention (DFA-SAT), which utilizes self-attention to learn semantic features with contextual information by incorporating neighboring data and focusing on vital geometric details. DFA-SAT comprises four modules: object-based down-sampling (OBDS), semantic and contextual feature extraction (SCFE), multi-level feature re-weighting (MLFR), and local and global features aggregation (LGFA). The OBDS module preserves the maximum number of semantic foreground points along with their spatial information. SCFE learns rich semantic and contextual information with respect to spatial dependencies, refining the point features. MLFR decodes all the point features using a channel-wise multi-layered transformer approach. LGFA combines local features with decoding weights for global features using matrix product keys and query embeddings to learn spatial information across each channel. Extensive experiments using the KITTI dataset demonstrate significant improvements over the mainstream methods SECOND and PointPillars, improving the mean average precision (AP) by 6.86% and 6.43%, respectively, on the KITTI test dataset. DFA-SAT yields better and more stable performance for medium and long distances with a limited impact on real-time performance and model parameters, ensuring a transformative shift akin to when automobiles replaced conventional transportation in cities. Full article

The large and necessary diffusion of huge solar plants in extra urban areas implies the adoption of maintenance strategies especially where human intervention would require high costs and logistic problems. Animal dejections like bird droppings and agricultural sprays are environmental agents able to significantly decrease light absorption and, in some cases, cause serious damage to the electric conversion systems in a photovoltaic panel. In this work, the performance of a superhydrophobic (SH) coating in terms of durable self-cleaning properties and transparency has been studied in the presence of commercial and simulated contaminants on glass reference and solar panel surfaces. Wettability studies have been carried out both in static and dynamic conditions in order to compare the compositional effect of commercial liquids used as fertilizers or pesticides and molecules like pancreatin as model substances simulating bird droppings. From these studies, it can be observed that the superhydrophobic coating, independently from the surface where it is applied, is able to repel water and substances used such as fertilizers or pesticides and substances simulating bird droppings, maintaining its properties and transparency. This kind of approach can provide information to design suitable spray formulations without the above-mentioned drawbacks to be used in natural environment areas and agrosolar plants. Full article

Background: The usage of probiotics has expanded beyond the areas of gut and immune health improvement. Several studies have shown the positive impact associated between probiotics and stress, cognition, and mood; a relationship referred to as the gut–brain axis. Method: The aim of this exploratory study was to evaluate the effect of the probiotic strain Lactiplantibacillus plantarum HEAL9 (LPHEAL9) on the gut–brain axis in subjects with moderate stress. One hundred and twenty-nine subjects aged 21–52 years completed the study, randomized to consume either LPHEAL9 (n = 65) or placebo (n = 64) for 12 weeks. Results: Perceived stress and awakening cortisol were significantly reduced over time in both groups. A significant improvement in four cognition tests after consumption of LPHEAL9 compared to placebo was observed (rapid information processing test, numeric working memory test, paired associated learning, and word recall, p < 0.05). There was a tendency for a significantly better improvement in the LPHEAL9 group for three mood subscales (Confusion–Bewilderment, Anger–Hostility, and Depression–Dejection) and for fewer subjects with poor sleep in the LPHEAL9 group compared to placebo (p < 0.10). Conclusions: Intake of LPHEAL9 significantly improved cognitive functions compared to the placebo, potentially by ameliorating aspects of mood and sleep. Full article

The wastewater from hospitals, pharmaceutical industries and more generally human and animal dejections leads to environmental releases of antibiotics that cause severe problems for all living organisms. The aim of this study was to investigate the capacity of three fungal strains to biotransform the fluoroquinolone levofloxacin. The degradation processes were analyzed in solid and liquid media. Among the three fungal strains tested, Coriolopsis gallica strain CLBE55 (BRFM 3473) showed the highest removal efficiency, with a 15% decrease in antibiogram zone of inhibition for Escherichia coli cultured in solid medium and 25% degradation of the antibiotic in liquid medium based on high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC). Proteomic analysis suggested that laccases and dye-decolorizing peroxidases such as extracellular enzymes could be involved in levofloxacin degradation, with a putative major role for laccases. Degradation products were proposed based on mass spectrometry analysis, and annotation suggested that the main product of biotransformation of levofloxacin by Coriolopsis gallica is an N-oxidized derivative. Full article

Feelings significantly affect organizations in a variety of circumstances and areas. Many major events that affect people and organizations cannot be discussed without an understanding of the essential roles of feelings. In addition, work-related feelings can substantially affect employees’ health, well-being, productivity, and performance. The purposes of this research were (1) to validate the work-related affective feelings (WORAF) questionnaire in Arabic respondents, (2) to examine the relationships among four WORAF: happiness, anxiety, anger, and dejection, and (3) to compare the model results with those in Turkish respondents participating in a previous study. A survey with the following four components was conducted: (1) work-related feelings of happiness, (2) work-related feelings of anxiety, (3) work-related feelings of anger, and (4) work-related feelings of dejection. A paper-based survey was completed by 332 workers from various companies in Saudi Arabia. The key components of the research model were developed with partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM). According to the findings, workplace dejection and anger considerably affected workplace anxiety. Similarly, work-related dejection, anger, and anxiety significantly affected perceived happiness. A comparison indicated similar results between Arabic and Turkish respondents. Full article

Chagas disease (ChD) is a vector zoonosis native to the American continent caused by the protozoan parasite Trypanosoma cruzi; the biological vectors are multiple species of hematophagous insects of the family Triatominae. A relevant aspect in the host–parasite relationship is the identification of the various genotypes of T. cruzi called discrete typing units (DTU) that circulate in mammals and vectors. In Chile, it has been described that the DTUs TcI, TcII, TcV, and TcVI circulate in infected humans, vectors, and wild animals. Identifying DTUs has acquired clinical importance, since it has been suggested that different genotypes could cause distinct pathologies, circulate in different geographical areas, and present different sensitivities to trypanocidal drugs. In this study, circulating T. cruzi DTUs in peripheral blood and Triatoma infestans dejections used in xenodiagnosis (XD) were amplified by qPCR in 14 Chilean patients with chronic ChD from highly endemic areas. More positive samples were detected by XD compared to peripheral blood samples, and 64.28% of the cases were simple infections and 35.72% mixed, with a statistically significant difference in the frequency of TcV DTU. This study would suggest that T. infestans from Chile is more competent to amplify one DTU over others, probably due to a process of co-evolution. Full article

Trypanosoma cruzi is the causal agent of Chagas disease, a parasitic zoonosis transmitted mainly through the feces of triatomine insects. Triatoma infestans is the main triatomine vector of this disease in South America. Previous research has shown that T. cruzi infection modifies the behavior of triatomines. We evaluated, for the first time, the effect of parasite load on feeding and defecation behavior, which we quantified by using real-time PCR. The detection time of the host was shorter in infected individuals, and the number of bites increased, while the dejection time was reduced when compared with the non-infected group. A significant correlation between the parasite load and the behavioral changes registered in the infected triatomines was found. These results would indicate that the intensity of T. cruzi infection modulates the feeding and defecation behavior of T. infestans, increasing the vector competence of this triatomine vector. Full article

Sleep loss causes mood disturbance in non-clinical populations under severe conditions, i.e., two days/nights of sleep deprivation or a week of sleep restriction with 4–5 h in bed each night. However, the effects of more-common types of sleep loss on mood disturbance are not yet known. Therefore, the aim of this study was to examine mood disturbance in healthy adults over a week with nightly time in bed controlled at 5, 6, 7, 8 or 9 h. Participants (n = 115) spent nine nights in the laboratory and were given either 5, 6, 7, 8 or 9 h in bed over seven consecutive nights. Mood was assessed daily using the Profile of Mood States (POMS-2). Mixed-linear effects models examined the effect of time in bed on total mood disturbance and subscales of anger-hostility, confusion-bewilderment, depression-dejection, fatigue-inertia, tension-anxiety, vigour-activity and friendliness. There was no effect of time in bed on total mood disturbance (F(4, 110.42) = 1.31, p = 0.271) or any of the subscales except fatigue-inertia. Fatigue-inertia was higher in the 5 h compared with the 9 h time in bed condition (p = 0.012, d = 0.75). Consecutive nights of moderate sleep loss (i.e., 5–7 h) does not affect mood but does increase fatigue in healthy males. Full article

The coach-created motivational climate influences variations in athletes’ motivation and emotional experiences. The present study aimed to examine social environmental antecedents of athletes’ emotions. Participants (N = 262, 52% female, M age = 22.75 ± 6.92) completed questionnaires assessing perceptions of coach-created motivational climates, goal orientations, motivation regulations, and emotions. The mediation effects of goal orientations (i.e., task/ego) and motivation regulations (i.e., autonomous/controlled) on the relationship between motivational climate (i.e., empowering/disempowering) and emotions (i.e., happiness, excitement, anxiety, dejection, and anger) were examined. Structural equation modeling revealed positive direct effects of perceptions of an empowering motivational climate on happiness. Indirect effects of empowering climate to happiness and excitement via task orientation and autonomous motivation emerged. Perceptions of a disempowering climate positively predicted anxiety, dejection, and anger via ego orientation and controlled motivation. Overall, the findings have implications for coach education as they highlight the importance of creating more empowering environments and avoiding or reducing social comparisons. Full article

Fertilizing and spraying techniques are repeatedly driven in tramlines for crop care with products whose demand increases for higher yields. The soil in tramlines is so compacted by heavy crop care machinery what leads breakdown to lifelessness. Such damaged state of the soil continues all season and leads to dejected soil productivity. The aim of this study is to find an optimal process of soil renovation in tramlines on loam and clay loam soil and to determine the required fuel consumption. The soil renovation was investigated by specially made Tiller on the dependence of tine shape types (narrow and winged) and working speed 1.6, 2.2 and 3.6 m∙s⁻¹ in loam and clay loam soil. The beneficial relationships of soil aggregate fraction ratio, which varied from 0.54 to 4.08 and fuel consumption, which varied from 1.04 to 1.82 L·km⁻¹ independence on tine shape and soil type was established. Based on research results, the sufficient soil loosening to suitable proportion of soil aggregates fraction ratio on loam soil was accomplished at working speed 3.6 m∙s⁻¹ with winged tine type and fuel consumption was 1.04 L·km⁻¹. The suitable soil aggregate fraction ratio on clay loam was achieved at working speed 3.6 m∙s⁻¹ with narrow tine shape type and fuel consumption was 1.31 L·km⁻¹. The volume of loosed soil in tramlines was particularly influenced by variation of tines shapes but was not influenced by the working speed majorly. The aligning of soil surface was influenced by the working speed majorly and particularly by variation of tines shapes. Full article

Given that elite athletes experience a wide range of different emotions (e.g., anxiety, anger, dejection, excitement) toward upcoming sporting environments, it is surprising that researchers have given limited attention to the linkages between varied emotional experiences and diverse coping (unaccustomed) among athletes from diverse backgrounds. This study investigated the impact of religious coping, as opposed to conventional psychological skills, to ascertain whether these coping options influence elite student-athletes’ emotional reactions across gender, competitive status, and religion. Using a descriptive cross-sectional survey design, self-reported discrete emotions and religious coping were measured with the Sport Emotion Questionnaire (SEQ) and Brief-Religious Coping Scale (Brief RCOPE) after 300 selected athletes were conveniently chosen. A factorial multivariate analysis of covariance (MANCOVA) after controlling for age revealed no significant interactions for between-subject factors (gender, status, religion) across all the discrete emotions and religious coping dimensions. However, significant main effects were realized for competitive status and religion on only anger, anxiety, dejection, and negative religious coping. A follow-up multiple regression analysis identified religion as the most significant predictor of anger, anxiety, and dejection, whereas competitive status was the most associated variable for negative religious coping. Current findings suggest that athletes’ unpleasant or negative emotions were linked to negative religious coping, a maladaptive coping mechanism that may hinder attaining optimal emotional state prior to competition. Therefore, these athletes need purposeful strategies (e.g., positive religious coping, motivational strategies) that may improve weakened beliefs based on their struggles before competition. The development of appropriate psychological intervention framework that maintains respect for athletes’ religious identities for improved psychological well-being is also warranted. Full article