Search Results (37)

Background: With the widespread application of three-dimensional (3D) display technology, enhancing the realism of users’ experience in virtual 3D space has become important. A deep understanding of the mechanisms of human depth perception is therefore crucial. Objective: This study aims to investigate the influence of motion parallax, color, and object position cues on depth perception in 3D space. Method: Random-dot stereograms based on binocular disparity cues were constructed; three experiments were designed, varying the stimulus movement speed, color, and position; two-alternative forced-choice (2AFC) psychophysical paradigms were employed to collect participants’ responses regarding depth perception; and statistical analyses were conducted to examine the influences of these three cues on depth perception specified by binocular disparity. Results: A relatively small amount of motion parallax indicated a certain inhibitory effect on depth perception, whereas a larger amount might enhance the perceived depth. Introducing red, green, or blue color to the moving stimuli might also have a certain promoting effect. Furthermore, a significant difference in perceived depth was observed when the positions of the Test Stimulus and the Standard Stimulus differed within a trial, which might involve areas of higher-level brain function (such as visual attention). In conclusion, when multiple visual cues are present concurrently, they exhibit complex interactions that affect human depth perception. Full article

Natural resource assets inherently integrate tripartite synthesis of legal, economic, and ecological attributes. They serve dual critical functions as foundational elements supporting the evolution of new-quality productive forces and pivotal mechanisms safeguarding ecosystemic integrity. It has become a global consensus and direction of action to advance comprehensive supervision of natural resource assets and practice the concept of “Community of Life for Human and Nature”. Under the background of the super-ministry system restructuring in China, comprehensive supervision of natural resource assets remains challenged by system fragmentation in supervision objectives and multifaceted interest conflicts among stakeholders. In light of this, this research focuses on the theoretical justification and system optimization of the comprehensive supervision of natural resource assets in China. Using comparative analysis and normative analysis methods, we validate the system’s function on the comprehensive supervision of natural resource assets, summarize foreign experiences, and ultimately aim to explore the optimization pathway of the legal system for the comprehensive supervision of natural resource assets. The results show the following: (1) The choice of the legal system for the comprehensive supervision of natural resource assets emerges as the functional product aligning societal objectives, the rational paradigm for achieving efficient resource allocation, and the adaptive response to the external effects of common property. (2) The system supply of comprehensive supervision of natural resource assets in foreign countries is characterized by normative convergence in conceptual elements and typological categorization in objectives and objects. Therefore, this research recommends that, in order to optimize the system of the comprehensive supervision of natural resource assets in China, (1) in terms of protection of source, natural resource assets should be categorized, with operational natural resource assets focusing on management and public welfare natural resource assets focusing on conservation. (2) In terms of valuation, the economic valuation of natural resource assets should be integrated with ecosystem service assessments to enhance fair market equity. (3) In terms of method, the big data center should be established to enable the synergistic integration of technological innovation and system reforms. (4) In terms of subject, requiring the participation of various government departments, non-governmental organizations, the general public, and other parties could realize the connection of different legal bases for the comprehensive supervision of natural resource assets and the balance of multiple rights and interests, which should help to achieve balanced resource efficiency and biodiversity conservation and safeguard national ecological security. Full article

Medical education is the paradigm of 21st century education and the current changes involve the adoption of integrative and comprehensive patient-centered teaching and learning approaches. Thus, curricular developers from George Emil Palade University of Medicine, Pharmacy, Sciences, and Technology of Targu Mures (G.E. Palade UMPhST of Targu Mures) have recently designed and implemented an innovative medical curriculum, as well as two valuable assessment tools for both theoretical knowledge and practical skills. Thus, during the first three preclinical years, the students will benefit from an organ- and system-centered block teaching approach, while the clinical years will focus on enabling students to achieve the most important practical skills in clinical practice, based on a patient bedside teaching system. In terms of theoretical knowledge assessment, the UNiX center at G.E. Palade UMPhST of Targu Mures, a recently designed center endowed with the latest next-generation technology, enables individualized, secured multiple-choice question-based assessments of the student’s learning outcomes. Moreover, an intelligent assessment tool for practical skills was also recently implemented in our branch in Hamburg, the Objective Structured Clinical Examination (O.S.C.E). This system uses direct observations for testing the student’s practical skills regarding anamnesis, clinical exams, procedures/maneuvers, the interpretation of laboratory tests and paraclinical investigations, differential diagnosis, management plans, communication, and medical counselling. The integrative, comprehensive, patient-centered curriculum and the intelligent assessment system, implemented in G.E Palade UMPhST of Targu Mures, help define innovation in education and enable the students to benefit from a high-quality medical education. Full article

We characterize computer science as an interplay between two modes of reasoning: the Aristotelian (procedural) method and the Platonic (declarative) approach. We contend that Aristotelian, step-by-step thinking dominates in computer programming, while Platonic, static reasoning plays a more prominent role in computational complexity. Various frameworks elegantly blend both Aristotelian and Platonic reasoning. A key example explored in this paper concerns nondeterministic polynomial time Turing machines. Beyond this interplay, we emphasize the growing importance of the ‘computing by observing’ paradigm, which posits that a single derivation tree—generated with a string-rewriting system—can yield multiple interpretations depending on the choice of the observer. Advocates of this paradigm formalize the Aristotelian activities of rewriting and observing within automata theory through a Platonic lens. This approach raises a fundamental question: How do these Aristotelian activities re-emerge when the paradigm is formulated in propositional logic? By addressing this issue, we develop a novel simulation method for nondeterministic Turing machines, particularly those bounded by polynomial time, improving upon the standard textbook approach. Full article

The magnitude and multiformity of recorded and readily available urban data from independent sensors and mobile user devices have paved new possibilities for city environment planning and evolution. In previous works, a visual semantic decision support system for urban planning was presented, and the capability of machine learning approaches, ranging from random forests to graph-based convolutional neural networks, to infer preferable directions for future development was explored, extrapolating upon previous opted locations and selected alternatives for publicly commercial services. In this work, the anterior decision-making process leading to establishment choices is addressed with the same sets of criteria and samples within the same environment. A Declarative Modeling shell is proposed, and Multiple Criteria Decision Analysis processes are adopted to encompass the DM’s/DMs’ rationale, solely relying on methodologies close to human intuition. To this end, outranking representatives from the PROMETHEE family as well as weighted sum approaches are employed, fueled by the interpretation of the declarative description of decision parameters on behalf of the DM(s), exploring the ability to achieve classifications in a straight synthetic manner, i.e., in the absence of previous knowledge, thus exhibiting the potential of decision analysis methodologies, enhanced by Declarative Modeling, to be used as powerful intuitive tools in similar paradigm contexts. Full article

The treatment paradigm of multiple myeloma (MM) has shifted in the past years, as continuous therapy is becoming the standard of care for both newly diagnosed and relapsed patients. Although it is indisputable that continuous therapy has added a great benefit on the progression-free as well as overall survival, it is still unclear what the patients’ perspective is on this therapeutic approach. Methods: This study included 155 adult MM patients from Fundeni Clinical Institute in Romania, receiving continuous therapy with daratumumab, proteasome inhibitors, immunomodulators, or bi-specific antibodies. The patients had varied economic, social, and educational backgrounds. We developed a questionnaire to interrogate the quantitative and qualitative effect of the therapy on the patients’ personal and professional life and to identify the side effects that had the strongest impact on their quality of life. Results: 74.83% of the patients reported that the treatment they received negatively impacted their quality of life. Among them, 40% considered that the most detrimental aspects of the therapy are the financial burden and the negative impact on their professional life. One-third of the patients reported that the therapy negatively impacted their personal life and that it had a deleterious effect on their relationship with their partner and family members. In terms of the side effects experienced, patients considered that tiredness was the main factor causing a decrease in their quality of life, followed by insomnia and bone pain. Despite this, almost none of the patients considered dropping the therapy, and almost half of the patients considered that the frequent visits to the hospital offered them psychological comfort. In addition, more than 70% of the patients declared that they were afraid to stop the therapy if given the choice, with the main concerns being the fear of an early relapse. Conclusions: Although continuous therapy is associated with a high financial burden and a negative impact on both professional and personal life, the frequent visits to the hospital appear to be reassuring. Moreover, the patients would not opt for treatment discontinuation and felt safer when monitored frequently. Full article

Advances in next-generation sequencing (NGS) have catalyzed a paradigm shift in cancer treatment, steering the focus from conventional, organ-specific protocols to precision medicine. Emerging targeted therapies offer a cutting-edge approach to cancer treatment, while companion diagnostics play an essential role in aligning therapeutic choices with specific molecular changes identified through NGS. Despite these advances, interpreting the clinical implications of a rapidly expanding catalog of genetic mutations remains a challenge. The selection of therapies in the presence of multiple mutations requires careful clinical judgment, supported by quality-centric genomic testing that emphasizes actionable mutations. Molecular tumor boards can play an increasing role in assimilating genomic data into clinical trials, thereby refining personalized treatment approaches and improving patient outcomes. Full article

Objective: To assess the frequency and types of genetic mutations in patients with arrhythmias who underwent cardiac device implantation. Methods: Retrospective observational study, including 38 patients with different arrhythmias and cardiac arrest as a first cardiac event. Treatment modalities encompass pacemakers, transvenous defibrillators, loop recorders, subcutaneous defibrillators, and cardiac resynchronization therapy. All patients underwent genetic testing, using commercially available panels (106–174 genes). Outcome measures include mortality, arrhythmia recurrence, and device-related complications. Results: Clinical parameters revealed a family history of sudden cardiac death in 19 patients (50%), who were predominantly male (58%) and had a mean age of 44.5 years and a mean left ventricle ejection fraction of 40.3%. Genetic testing identified mutations in various genes, predominantly TMEM43 (11%). In two patients (3%) with arrhythmogenic cardiomyopathy, complete subcutaneous defibrillator extraction with de novo transvenous implantable cardioverter-defibrillator implantation was needed. The absence of multiple associations among severe gene mutations was crucial for cardiac resynchronization therapy response. Mortality in this group was around 3% in titin dilated cardiomyopathy patients. Conclusions: Integration of genetic testing into the decision-making process for patients with electronic devices represents a paradigm shift in personalized medicine. By identifying genetic markers associated with arrhythmia susceptibility, heart failure etiology, and cardiac resynchronization therapy response, clinicians can tailor device choices to optimize patient outcomes. Full article

Skin scarring and fibrosis affect millions of people worldwide, representing a serious clinical problem causing physical and psychological challenges for patients. Stem cell therapy and regenerative surgery represent a new area of treatment focused on promoting the body’s natural ability to repair damaged tissue. Adipose-derived stem cells (ASCs) represent an optimal choice for practical regenerative medicine due to their abundance, autologous tissue origin, non-immunogenicity, and ease of access with minimal morbidity for patients. This review of the literature explores the current body of evidence around the use of ASCs-based regenerative strategies for the treatment of scarring and skin fibrosis, exploring the different surgical approaches and their application in multiple fibrotic skin conditions. Human, animal, and in vitro studies demonstrate that ASCs present potentialities in modifying scar tissue and fibrosis by suppressing extracellular matrix (ECM) synthesis and promoting the degradation of their constituents. Through softening skin fibrosis, function and overall quality of life may be considerably enhanced in different patient cohorts presenting with scar-related symptoms. The use of stem cell therapies for skin scar repair and regeneration represents a paradigm shift, offering potential alternative therapeutic avenues for fibrosis, a condition that currently lacks a cure. Full article

Janus kinase (JAK) inhibitors have heralded a paradigm shift in the management of immune-mediated diseases. While their efficacy is well-established, the safety concerns associated with these agents, particularly regarding thromboembolic events (TE), remain a focus of extensive research and clinical scrutiny. This comprehensive literature review embarks on an exploration of the multifaceted landscape of JAK inhibitors, providing insights into their safety profiles across diverse immune-mediated diseases. The introduction highlights the transformative influence of JAK inhibitors in the treatment of immune-mediated diseases. Historically, the therapeutic arsenal for these conditions included corticosteroids, disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs (DMARDs), and biologics. The advent of JAK inhibitors has revolutionized this landscape, although concerns about their safety persist. This review strives to comprehensively evaluate their safety, amalgamating knowledge from multiple studies and trials. The subsequent sections delve into the safety of specific JAK inhibitors in the context of rheumatoid arthritis, inflammatory bowel diseases, and dermatologic conditions and their associations with venous thromboembolism. The evolving understanding of TE risk, particularly the intricate relationship between these agents and immune-mediated diseases, is meticulously unravelled. The concluding remarks underscore the dynamic nature of TE risk assessment with regard to immune-mediated diseases involving JAK inhibitors. It underscores that risk assessment is multifactorial, influenced not only by the choice of JAK inhibitor but also by the nuances of the underlying immune-mediated disease and the unique patient characteristics. This review offers a holistic perspective on TE risks associated with JAK inhibitors and contributes to the ongoing dialogue regarding their safety in the realm of immune-mediated diseases. Full article

Linear probing continues to be one of the best practical hashing algorithms due to its good average performance, efficiency, and simplicity of implementation. However, the worst-case performance of linear probing seems to degrade with high load factors due to a primary-clustering tendency of one collision to cause more nearby collisions. It is known that the maximum cluster size produced by linear probing, and hence the length of the longest probe sequence needed to insert or search for a key in a hash table of size n, is $\Omega \left(\log n\right)$, in probability. In this article, we introduce linear probing hashing schemes that employ two linear probe sequences to find empty cells for the keys. Our results show that two-way linear probing is a promising alternative to linear probing for hash tables. We show that two-way linear probing has an asymptotically almost surely $O\left(\log \log n\right)$ maximum cluster size when the load factor is constant. Matching lower bounds on the maximum cluster size produced by any two-way linear probing algorithm are obtained as well. Our analysis is based on a novel approach that uses the multiple-choice paradigm and witness trees. Full article

Resource management in the sustainability context has increasingly been a key object that makes the application of holistic approaches an imperative need. The water–energy–food nexus concept offers tools for such system analysis in an integrated manner, through the identification and quantification of synergies and trade-offs. The agricultural sector often constitutes one of the main resource depletion hotspots. In this article, a nexus assessment methodological approach is developed for an agricultural context. Water, energy, food, land uses, and greenhouse gas emissions are perceived as nexus components. The methodology considers resource uses within and outside the biogeographical system boundaries, interpreting them as direct and indirect interlinkages. The methodology is validated on an actual case study, in Thessaly, Central Greece. Four nexus indicators are introduced to assess the impact of different land use planning scenarios. Legume production, which has been considered as a relatively beneficial land use among other crop choices, is tested against the four nexus indicators. Multiple advantages of such a land use paradigm shift are revealed, specific to the directions of food security, energy security, and economic sustainability. Full article

A biomarker is any measurable biological moiety that can be assessed and measured as a potential index of either normal or abnormal pathophysiology or pharmacological responses to some treatment regimen. Every tissue in the body has a distinct biomolecular make-up, which is known as its biomarkers, which possess particular features, viz., the levels or activities (the ability of a gene or protein to carry out a particular body function) of a gene, protein, or other biomolecules. A biomarker refers to some feature that can be objectively quantified by various biochemical samples and evaluates the exposure of an organism to normal or pathological procedures or their response to some drug interventions. An in-depth and comprehensive realization of the significance of these biomarkers becomes quite important for the efficient diagnosis of diseases and for providing the appropriate directions in case of multiple drug choices being presently available, which can benefit any patient. Presently, advancements in omics technologies have opened up new possibilities to obtain novel biomarkers of different types, employing genomic strategies, epigenetics, metabolomics, transcriptomics, lipid-based analysis, protein studies, etc. Particular biomarkers for specific diseases, their prognostic capabilities, and responses to therapeutic paradigms have been applied for screening of various normal healthy, as well as diseased, tissue or serum samples, and act as appreciable tools in pharmacology and therapeutics, etc. In this review, we have summarized various biomarker types, their classification, and monitoring and detection methods and strategies. Various analytical techniques and approaches of biomarkers have also been described along with various clinically applicable biomarker sensing techniques which have been developed in the recent past. A section has also been dedicated to the latest trends in the formulation and designing of nanotechnology-based biomarker sensing and detection developments in this field. Full article

The internet of things, a collection of diversified distributed nodes, implies a varying choice of activities ranging from sleep monitoring and tracking of activities, to more complex activities such as data analytics and management. With an increase in scale comes even greater complexities, leading to significant challenges such as excess energy dissipation, which can lead to a decrease in IoT devices’ lifespan. Internet of things’ (IoT) multiple variable activities and ample data management greatly influence devices’ lifespan, making resource optimisation a necessity. Existing methods with respect to aspects of resource management and optimisation are limited in their concern of devices energy dissipation. This paper therefore proposes a decentralised approach, which contains an amalgamation of efficient clustering techniques, edge computing paradigms, and a hybrid algorithm, targeted at curbing resource optimisation problems and life span issues associated with IoT devices. The decentralised topology aimed at the resource optimisation of IoT places equal importance on resource allocation and resource scheduling, as opposed to existing methods, by incorporating aspects of the static (round robin), dynamic (resource-based), and clustering (particle swarm optimisation) algorithms, to provide a solid foundation for an optimised and secure IoT. The simulation constructs five test-case scenarios and uses performance indicators to evaluate the effects the proposed model has on resource optimisation in IoT. The simulation results indicate the superiority of the PSOR2B to the ant colony, the current centralised optimisation approach, LEACH, and C-LBCA. Full article

Compassionate care is vital to quality palliative care and integral to the provision of spiritual care at the end of life. But is sustaining compassion costly for healthcare providers (HCP), impacting their emotional and spiritual wellbeing, professional purpose, and moral self-image? Concerns about the costs of compassion for carers have gathered pace in a growing healthcare literature on compassion fatigue. Critics, however, argue that compassion fatigue lacks adequate conceptualisation, querying whether it fits with HCP’s own perceptions and suggesting it lacks utility for identifying interventions. This article contributes to this debate about moving beyond compassion fatigue, by bringing new psychological research on compassion as a motivated choice to bear on these questions and demonstrating its potential for illuminating interventions to support compassion in palliative care contexts. It proposes a focus on motive-based interventions which serve to tip the cost–benefit analysis in relation to compassion and thus support HCP motivation to feel and act compassionately. A key implication of this approach is that sustaining compassion is not up to individuals alone, as can often seem to be the case with ‘self-care’ paradigms. Rather, there are multiple ways institutions and society can play a role in motive-based interventions to sustain HCP compassion and wellbeing. The final section explores one example in the form of institutional support for spiritual care education. Full article