Search Results (16)

Background and Objectives: Anxiety is prevalent in patients with major depressive disorder (MDD) and bipolar disorder (BD). Understanding its interaction with mood disorders may provide deeper insight into symptom clustering, severity, and interventions. We compared the networks of MDD and BD using the Beck Anxiety Inventory (BAI) to identify central symptoms and interconnections. Materials and Methods: This cross-sectional study involved 815 individuals with MDD (n = 332) and BD (n = 483) who had clinically significant anxiety symptoms (BAI score > 8). Network analysis identified anxiety symptom clusters. Network centrality, stability, and comparison tests assessed the structural differences and global strength variations between the groups. Results: Both the MDD and BD networks showed strong interconnections among several BAI items and demonstrated stable centrality measures. Core symptoms with high centrality included “Losing control”, “Choking”, “Breathing”, “Unsteady”, and “Shaky” in both MDD and BD. Although no significant differences were found in the overall network structures between MDD and BD, the global strength of the network differed significantly, with MDD exhibiting modestly higher overall anxiety network connectivity than BD. Conclusions: Network clusters revealed aspects of both cognitive and somatic symptoms of anxiety. Although overall structures were similar between the groups, the MDD group showed stronger interconnections for central anxiety symptoms. Targeting central anxiety symptoms can enhance prevention and intervention strategies for mood disorders and improve clinical outcomes. Full article

Rationality has long been considered the quintessence of humankind. However, psychological experiments revealing reliable divergences in performances on reasoning tasks from normative principles of reasoning have cast serious doubt on the venerable dogma that human beings are rational animals. According to the standard picture, reasoning in accordance with principles based on rules of logic, probability theory, etc., is rational. The standard picture provides the backdrop for both the rationality and irrationality thesis, and, by virtue of the competence-performance distinction, diametrically opposed interpretations of reasoning experiments are possible. However, the standard picture rests on shaky foundations. Jean Piaget developed a psychological theory of reasoning, in which logic and mathematics are continuous with psychology but nevertheless autonomous sources of knowledge. Accordingly, logic, probability theory, etc., are not extra-human norms, and reasoners have the ability to reason in accordance with them. In this paper, I set out Piaget’s theory of rationality, using intra- and interpropositional reasoning as illustrations, and argue that Piaget’s theory of rationality is compatible with the standard picture but actually undermines it by denying that norms of reasoning based on logic are psychologically relevant for rationality. In particular, rather than logic being the normative benchmark, I argue that rationality according to Piaget has a psychological foundation, namely the reversibility of the operations of thought constituting cognitive structures. Full article

In this study of the Reidemeister moves within the classical knot theory, we focus on hard diagrams of knots and links, categorizing them as either rigid or shaky based on their adaptability to certain moves. We establish that every link possesses a diagram that is a rigid hard diagram, and we provide an upper limit for the number of crossings in such diagrams. Furthermore, we investigate rigid hard diagrams for specific knots or links to determine their rigid hard index. In the topic of shaky hard diagrams, we demonstrate the existence of such diagrams for the unknot and unlink of any number of components and present examples of shaky hard diagrams. Full article

Lower limb functional degeneration has become prevalent, notably reducing the core strength that drives motor control. Squats are frequently used in lower limb training, improving overall muscle strength. However, performing continuously with improper techniques can lead to dynamic knee instability. It worsens with little to no motivation to perform these power training motions. Hence, it is crucial to have a gaming-based exercise tracking system to adaptively enhance the user experience without causing injury or falls. In this work, 28 healthy subjects performed exergame-based squat training, and dynamic kinematic features were recorded. The five features acquired from a depth camera-based inertial measurement unit (IMU) (1—Knee shakiness, 2—Knee distance, and 3—Squat depth) and an Anima forceplate sensor (4—Sway velocity and 5—Sway area) were assessed using a Spearman correlation coefficient-based feature selection method. An input vector that defines knee instability is used to train and test the Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) and Support Vector Machine (SVM) models for binary classification. The results showed that knee instability events can be successfully classified and achieved a high accuracy of 96% in both models with sets 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 and 1, 2, and 3. The feature selection results indicate that the LSTM network with the proposed combination of input features from multimodal sensors can successfully perform real-time tracking of knee instability. Furthermore, the findings demonstrate that this multimodal approach yields improved classifier performance with enhanced accuracy compared to using features from a single modality during lower limb therapy. Full article

Curvature theory, a fundamental subject in kinematics, is typically addressed through the concepts of instantaneous invariants and canonical coordinates, which are pivotal for the generation of mechanical paths. This paper delves into this subject with a higher-order analysis of screws, employing both canonical and natural coordinates. Through this exploration, a new Euler–Savary equation is derived, one that does not rely on canonical coordinates. Additionally, the paper provides a comprehensive classification of the degenerate conditions of the cubic of stationary curves of four-bar linkages at rotational positions. A thorough examination of four-bar linkages in translational positions—the couple links translate instantaneously—is also presented, with analyses extending up to the sixth order. The findings reveal that the Burmester’s points at translational positions can be extended to Burmester’s points with excess one, provided that all pivot points are symmetrically distributed about the pole norm with the two cranks in corotating senses. However, the extension to Burmester’s points with excess two is not possible. Similarly, the Ball’s point with excess one does not progress to Ball’s point with excess two. The paper also highlights that the traditional method, which is based on canonical coordinates, is ineffective when the four-bar linkage forms a parallelogram. Fortunately, this scenario can be effectively analyzed using the screw-based approach. Ultimately, the results presented can also serve as analytical solutions for 3-RR platforms with higher-order shakiness. Full article

While well-established literature argues that realized variances are close to a lognormal distribution, this study follows Benoit Mandelbrot by taking a fractal perspective. Using power laws to model realized foreign exchange rate variances, our findings indicate that power laws offer an alternative to the lognormal in terms of goodness-of-fit tests. Further, our analysis shows that estimated power law exponents for seven out of nine realized FX variances are $\widehat{\alpha }<3$, which indicates that the variance of realized variance is statistically undefined. We conclude that the foreign exchange rate market is far riskier than earlier believed. By implication, documented research in an enormous body of literature that draws conclusions from variance analyses stands on shaky grounds. Full article

The purpose of this essay was to examine and evaluate Abū Yaʿrub al-Marzūqī’s criticism of the maqāṣid theory. Al-Marzūqī is mostly concerned with epistemology and ethics. He contends that the maqāṣid theory is insufficient to assert access to God’s meaning in Islamic law, since it is based on shaky processes of knowledge, particularly that of ratiocination, taʿlīl. On the other hand, he challenges the maqāṣid jurists’ authority to define the goals of the law in the absence of popular support. Additionally, he charges the maqāṣid jurists with endorsing political authority so that it can utilize the maqāṣid method to defend specific policies in the name of upholding the public interest. His primary claim is that the maqāṣid theory exhibits arbitrariness. Full article

Background: Nurse practitioners (NPs) are known as effective healthcare providers worldwide. In Japan, nurse practitioner adoption is considered to be in a shaky period. Although nurse practitioners were introduced approximately 10 years ago at the initiative of educational institutions in Japan, the full extent of this trend is not known. Therefore, we have clarified the whole picture of nurse practitioners from two directions: the perception of nurse practitioners in Japan and the perception of physicians who work with nurse practitioners. This will inform discussions regarding the recruitment of nurse practitioners at the national level in Japan. Methods: From 18 June to 24 July 2021, we administered a nationwide cross-sectional survey of NPs and physicians working in the same clinical settings as NPs in Japan. The domains of the survey included “scope and content of work”, “perceptions of NPs’ clinical practice”, and “individual clinical practice characteristics”. The survey was distributed and collected digitally. Results: The total number of respondents to the survey was 281, including 169 NPs and 112 physicians; the percentage of NPs who responded was 50.5%. The number of valid responses was 164 NPs and 111 physicians, for a total of 275 respondents. Approximately 60% of NPs are concentrated in Tokyo, the capital of Japan, and the three prefectures adjacent to Tokyo. They also worked fewer hours per week, cared for fewer patients per day, and earned less money than physicians. More physicians than NPs indicated that “more NPs would improve the quality of care”. A total of 90.1% of physicians and 82.3% of NPs agreed that “Nurse practitioners should practice to the full extent of their education and training,” and 73.9% of physicians and 81.7% of NPs agreed that “Nurse practitioners’ scope of practice should be uniformly defined at a national level”. Conclusions: This study clarified the present working conditions of NPs from NPs’ and physicians’ perspectives in Japanese contexts. Japanese NPs may be able to work effectively in collaboration with physicians. Therefore, the implementation of NPs in Japanese medical conditions should be discussed further for better healthcare. Full article

In many parts of the world, long before social media, trust in media and journalism was fragile and shaky. Today, however, with an unprecedented information abundance, the situation has worsened because, in the high-speed information free-for-all of social media platforms and the internet, anyone can consume and produce. As a result, citizens find it difficult to discern what is real and what is fake. In this context, the aim of the study is to explore how information and fake news consumption affects the perception of media in terms of trust. The methodology applied for this purpose was a mixed method using both quantitative and qualitative data in order to provide not only descriptive data but more thorough results. For the quantitative analysis, a sample of 849 university students participated: from these, a smaller sample of 100 participated in the qualitative phase. Conclusions indicate that the distribution of fake news is worryingly associated with the media and, consequently, a concerning distrust of media is shown among participants who express feeling insecure, vulnerable, confused, and distrusting of media. Full article

Monitoring the progress of student learning is an important part of teachers’ data-based decision making. One such tool that can equip teachers with information about students’ learning progress throughout the school year and thus facilitate monitoring and instructional decision making is learning progress assessments. In practical contexts and research, estimating learning progress has relied on approaches that seek to estimate progress either for each student separately or within overarching model frameworks, such as latent growth modeling. Two recently emerging lines of research for separately estimating student growth have examined robust estimation (to account for outliers) and Bayesian approaches (as opposed to commonly used frequentist methods). The aim of this work was to combine these approaches (i.e., robust Bayesian estimation) and extend these lines of research to the framework of linear latent growth models. In a sample of N = 4970 second-grade students who worked on the quop-L2 test battery (to assess reading comprehension) at eight measurement points, we compared three Bayesian linear latent growth models: (a) a Gaussian model, (b) a model based on Student’s t-distribution (i.e., a robust model), and (c) an asymmetric Laplace model (i.e., Bayesian quantile regression and an alternative robust model). Based on leave-one-out cross-validation and posterior predictive model checking, we found that both robust models outperformed the Gaussian model, and both robust models performed comparably well. While the Student’s t model performed statistically slightly better (yet not substantially so), the asymmetric Laplace model yielded somewhat more realistic posterior predictive samples and a higher degree of measurement precision (i.e., for those estimates that were either associated with the lowest or highest degree of measurement precision). The findings are discussed for the context of learning progress assessment. Full article

For a higher attack accuracy of projectiles, a novel mechanical and electronic video stabilization strategy is proposed for trajectory correction fuze. In this design, the complexity of sensors and actuators were reduced. To cope with complex combat environments, an infrared image sensor was used to provide video output. Following the introduction of the fuze’s workflow, the limitation of sensors for mechanical video stabilization on fuze was proposed. Particularly, the parameters of the infrared image sensor that strapdown with fuze were calculated. Then, the transformation relation between the projectile’s motion and the shaky video was investigated so that the electronic video stabilization method could be determined. Correspondingly, a novel method of dividing sub-blocks by adaptive global gray threshold was proposed for the image pre-processing. In addition, the gray projection algorithm was used to estimate the global motion vector by calculating the correlation between the curves of the adjacent frames. An example simulation and experiment were implemented to verify the effectiveness of this strategy. The results illustrated that the proposed algorithm significantly reduced the computational cost without affecting the accuracy of the motion estimation. This research provides theoretical and experimental basis for the intelligent application of sensor systems on fuze. Full article

During the course of ubiquitous data monitoring in the underwater environment, achieving sustainable communication links among the sensor nodes with astute link quality seems an ordeal challenge. Energy utilization has a direct impact because all active devices are battery dependent and no charging or replacement actions can be made when cost- effective data packet delivery has been set as the benchmark. Hop link inspection and the selection of a Shrewd link through a resurrecting link factor have been nothing short of a bleak challenge, and only possible after meticulous research to develop a shrewd underwater routing synergy using extra porous energy shells (SURS-PES) which has never been conducted before. After broadcasting packets, the sensor node conducts a link inspection phase, thereby, if any link is found to be less than or equal to 50% shaky, the destination receiving node adds its residual energy status and returns it to the source node which adds some unusable energy porous shell to strengthen the link from 5% to a maximum of 90% and sends it only to the targeted node, therefore, an unaltered data packet delivery is anticipated. Performance evaluation was carried out using an NS2 simulator and the obtained results were compared with depth-based routing (DBR) and energy efficient DBR (EEDBR) to observe the outcomes with results that confirmed the previously mentioned direction for research in this area. Full article

With the availability of 360-degree cameras, 360-degree videos have become popular recently. To attach a virtual tag on a physical object in 360-degree videos for augmented reality applications, automatic object tracking is required so the virtual tag can follow its corresponding physical object in 360-degree videos. Relative to ordinary videos, 360-degree videos in an equirectangular format have special characteristics such as viewpoint change, occlusion, deformation, lighting change, scale change, and camera shakiness. Tracking algorithms designed for ordinary videos may not work well on 360-degree videos. Therefore, we thoroughly evaluate the performance of eight modern trackers in terms of accuracy and speed on 360-degree videos. The pros and cons of these trackers on 360-degree videos are discussed. Possible improvements to adapt these trackers to 360-degree videos are also suggested. Finally, we provide a dataset containing nine 360-degree videos with ground truth of target positions as a benchmark for future research. Full article

Vitamin K family molecules—phylloquinone (K1), menaquinone (K2), and menadione (K3)—act as γ-glutamyl carboxylase (GGCX)-exclusive cofactors in their hydroquinone state, activating proteins of main importance for blood coagulation in the liver and for arterial calcification prevention and energy metabolism in extrahepatic tissues. Once GGCX is activated, vitamin K is found in the epoxide state, which is then recycled to quinone and hydroquinone states by vitamin K epoxide reductase (VKORC1). Nevertheless, little information is available concerning vitamin K1, K2, or K3 tissue distribution and preferential interactions towards VKORC1. Here we present a molecular modeling study of vitamin K1, menaquinones 4, 7 (MK4, MK7), and K3 structural interactions with VKORC1. VKORC1 was shown to tightly bind vitamins K1 and MK4 in the epoxide and quinone states, but not in the hydroquinone state; five VKORC1 residues were identified as crucial for vitamin K stabilization, and two other ones were essential for hydrogen bond formation. However, vitamin MK7 revealed shaky binding towards VKORC1, induced by hydrophobic tail interactions with the membrane. Vitamin K3 exhibited the lowest affinity with VKORC1 because of the absence of a hydrophobic tail, preventing structural stabilization by the enzyme. Enzymatic activity towards vitamins K1, MK4, MK7, and K3 was also evaluated by in vitro assays, validating our in silico predictions: VKORC1 presented equivalent activities towards vitamins K1 and MK4, but much lower activity with respect to vitamin MK7, and no activity towards vitamin K3. Our results revealed VKORC1’s ability to recycle both phylloquinone and some menaquinones, and also highlighted the importance of vitamin K’s hydrophobic tail size and membrane interactions. Full article

First-Person Videos (FPVs) are recorded using wearable cameras to share the recorder’s First-Person Experience (FPE). Ideally, the FPE is conveyed by the viewing experience of the FPV. However, raw FPVs are usually too shaky to watch, which ruins the viewing experience. To solve this problem, we improve the viewing experience of FPVs by modeling it as two parts: video stability and First-Person Motion Information (FPMI). Existing video stabilization techniques can improve the video stability but damage the FPMI. We propose a Viewing Experience (VE) score, which measures both the stability and the FPMI of a FPV by exploring the mechanism of human perception. This enables us to further develop a system that can stabilize FPVs while preserving their FPMI so that the viewing experience of FPVs is improved. Objective tests show that our measurement is robust under different kinds of noise, and our system has competitive performance relative to current stabilization techniques. Subjective tests show that (1) both our stability and FPMI measurements can correctly compare the corresponding attributes of an FPV across different versions of the same content, and (2) our video processing system can effectively improve the viewing experience of FPVs. Full article