List of Titles

A survey of blockchain-based IoT eHealthcare : applications, research issues, and challenges

- Rahman, Md Shafiur, Islam, Md Amirul, Uddin, Md Ashraf, Stea, Giovanni

Authors: Rahman, Md Shafiur , Islam, Md Amirul , Uddin, Md Ashraf , Stea, Giovanni
Date: 2022
Type: Text , Journal article , Review
Relation: Internet of Things (Netherlands) Vol. 19, no. (2022), p.
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Description: Blockchain (BC) technology has recently emerged as an essential component for different applications, including healthcare and IoT, because of its decentralized ledger, source provenance, and tamper-proof nature. The Internet of Things (IoT) and BC have enabled health systems to expand their scalability and maintain consistency on a decentralized platform. As a result, many researchers have developed BC-enabled IoT eHealth systems and explored the application of BC technology in diverse fields of eHealthcare. This paper conducts a comprehensive survey on the emerging applications of BC technology in healthcare. We summarize applications, research issues, security threats, research challenges, opportunities, and the future scope of BC technologies in the IoT-enabled healthcare system when BC is adopted to handle the privacy and storage of current and future medical records. Furthermore, we analyze the state-of-the-art BC works in the medical area, assessing their benefits-drawbacks, and guiding future researchers to overcome the limitations of the existing articles. © 2022 Elsevier B.V.

A synthesis of the current knowledge on the Australian Orchesellidae (Collembola, Entomobryoidea)

- Bellini, Bruno, Greenslade, Penelope, Baquero, Enrique, Jordana, Rafael, De Souza, Paolla

Authors: Bellini, Bruno , Greenslade, Penelope , Baquero, Enrique , Jordana, Rafael , De Souza, Paolla
Date: 2022
Type: Text , Journal article
Relation: Zootaxa Vol. 5115, no. 2 (2022), p. 221-257
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Description: The Australian Orchesellidae includes only 11 nominal species in four genera: Australotomurus Stach, 1947, Alloscopus Börner, 1906, Heteromurus Wankel, 1860, and Falcomurus Mandal, 2018. Here we describe Dicranocentrus dolosus sp. nov. from Cocos and Keeling Islands, the first species of the genus to be recorded from Australia. The new species is similar to D. inermodentes (Uchida, 1944) and D. indicus Bonet, 1930, but differs from both by the combination of the ventral head, mesothoracic and dental chaetotaxy. We also revisit Australotomurus based on previous studies to better interpret the dorsal macrochaetotaxy of the genus, and provide a synthetic map of chaetae to guide future studies on scaleless Orchesellidae. Finally, we present updated diagnoses to all genera and species of Australian Orchesellidae, as well as an identification key to all species. © 2022 Magnolia Press.

A tree-based stacking ensemble technique with feature selection for network intrusion detection

- Rashid, Mamanur, Kamruzzaman, Joarder, Imam, Tasadduq, Wibowo, Santoso, Gordon, Steven

Authors: Rashid, Mamanur , Kamruzzaman, Joarder , Imam, Tasadduq , Wibowo, Santoso , Gordon, Steven
Date: 2022
Type: Text , Journal article
Relation: Applied Intelligence Vol. 52, no. 9 (2022), p. 9768-9781
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Description: Several studies have used machine learning algorithms to develop intrusion systems (IDS), which differentiate anomalous behaviours from the normal activities of network systems. Due to the ease of automated data collection and subsequently an increased size of collected data on network traffic and activities, the complexity of intrusion analysis is increasing exponentially. A particular issue, due to statistical and computation limitations, a single classifier may not perform well for large scale data as existent in modern IDS contexts. Ensemble methods have been explored in literature in such big data contexts. Although more complicated and requiring additional computation, literature has a note that ensemble methods can result in better accuracy than single classifiers in different large scale data classification contexts, and it is interesting to explore how ensemble approaches can perform in IDS. In this research, we introduce a tree-based stacking ensemble technique (SET) and test the effectiveness of the proposed model on two intrusion datasets (NSL-KDD and UNSW-NB15). We further enhance incorporate feature selection techniques to select the best relevant features with the proposed SET. A comprehensive performance analysis shows that our proposed model can better identify the normal and anomaly traffic in network than other existing IDS models. This implies the potentials of our proposed system for cybersecurity in Internet of Things (IoT) and large scale networks. © 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature.

A unified damping controller for non-stationary forced oscillation

- Surinkaew, Tossaporn, Emami, Kianoush, Shah, Rakibuzzaman, Mithulananthan, Nadarajah, Muyeen, S., Fernando, Tyrone

Authors: Surinkaew, Tossaporn , Emami, Kianoush , Shah, Rakibuzzaman , Mithulananthan, Nadarajah , Muyeen, S. , Fernando, Tyrone
Date: 2022
Type: Text , Journal article
Relation: International Journal of Electrical Power and Energy Systems Vol. 143, no. (2022), p.
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Description: Forced disturbances (FDs) with non-stationary frequencies can sequentially resonate from electromechanical modes (EMs) to sub/super synchronous modes (SSMs) and thus lead to non-stationary forced oscillations (FOs). Previous FO damping controllers designed for specified frequency bands may not be able to suppress the non-stationary FOs. This paper proposes a unified FO damping controller design method to deal with all oscillations caused by non-stationary FOs. The model of a power system with non-stationary FOs is obtained by a continuous model detection and identification of measured signals, which does not require any value of the system parameters. Accordingly, four stability indices, i.e., robustness, interaction, frequency, and damping ratio of the EMs and SSMs, can be calculated from the estimated model. At each operating point, these indices are monitored and used to optimally design the unified FO damping controller. The effectiveness of the proposed unified FO damping controller is verified in the modified Southeast Australian power system with converter controlled-based generations under various operating points and FO conditions. © 2022 Elsevier Ltd

Abnormal entity-aware knowledge graph completion

- Sun, Ke, Yu, Shuo, Peng, Ciyuan, Li, Xiang, Naseriparsa, Mehdi, Xia, Feng

Authors: Sun, Ke , Yu, Shuo , Peng, Ciyuan , Li, Xiang , Naseriparsa, Mehdi , Xia, Feng
Date: 2022
Type: Text , Conference paper
Relation: 22nd IEEE International Conference on Data Mining Workshops, ICDMW 2022, Orlando USA, 28 November to 1 December 2022, Proceedings: 22nd IEEE International Conference on Data Mining Workshops Vol. 2022-November, p. 891-900
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Description: In real-world scenarios, knowledge graphs remain incomplete and contain abnormal information, such as redundan-cies, contradictions, inconsistencies, misspellings, and abnormal values. These shortcomings in the knowledge graphs potentially affect service quality in many applications. Although many approaches are proposed to perform knowledge graph completion, they are incapable of handling the abnormal information of knowledge graphs. Therefore, to address the abnormal information issue for the knowledge graph completion task, we design a novel knowledge graph completion framework called ABET, which specially focuses on abnormal entities. ABET consists of two components: a) abnormal entity prediction and b) knowledge graph completion. Firstly, the prediction component automati-cally predicts the abnormal entities in knowledge graphs. Then, the completion component effectively captures the heterogeneous structural information and the high-order features of neighbours based on different relations. Experiments demonstrate that ABET is an effective knowledge graph completion framework, which has made significant improvements over baselines. We further verify that ABET is robust for knowledge graph completion task with abnormal entities. © 2022 IEEE.

Aboriginal social work academics: failure to thrive due to having to fight to survive?

- Bennett, Bindi

Authors: Bennett, Bindi
Date: 2022
Type: Text , Journal article
Relation: Australian social work Vol. 75, no. 3 (2022), p. 344-357
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Description: The Behrendt report (2012) highlighted the significant lack of representation of Aboriginal people in higher education. It called for a collaborative approach by governments, universities, and professional bodies to drive systemic changes. In the last decade, this has resulted in an increase of Aboriginal students, staff, and researchers. This article presents a qualitative research study in which Aboriginal social work academic participants described their experiences of curriculum changes, workload, and research in the academy. Implications for universities, and social work programs, in particular, show where more is needed in the form of antiracist action plans and follow-through with these to address failure to thrive due to having to fight to survive in the academy. IMPLICATIONS Aboriginal social work academics are continuing to find academia to be socially and politically unsafe and unfairly competitive. Universities are experienced by Aboriginal social work academics as being often unsupportive and untrustworthy workplaces. Non-Aboriginal social work academics need to increase their commitment to, and actions regarding, antiracist practice with their Aboriginal colleagues.

About error bounds in metrizable topological vector spaces

- Abbasi, Malek, Théra, Michel

Authors: Abbasi, Malek , Théra, Michel
Date: 2022
Type: Text , Journal article
Relation: Set-Valued and Variational Analysis Vol. 30, no. 4 (2022), p. 1291-1311
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Description: This paper aims to present some sufficient criteria under which a given function between two spaces that are either topological vector spaces whose topologies are generated by metrics or metrizable subsets of some topological vector spaces, satisfies the error bound property. Then, we discuss the Hoffman estimation and obtain some results for the estimate of the distance to the set of solutions to a system of linear equalities. The advantage of our estimate is that it allows to calculate the coefficient of the error bound. The applications of this presentation are illustrated by some examples. © 2022, This is a U.S. Government work and not under copyright protection in the US; foreign copyright protection may apply.

Adaptive modelling of dynamic brittle fracture - a combined phase field regularized cohesive zone model and scaled boundary finite element approach

- Natarajan, Sundararajan, Ooi, Ean Tat, Birk, Carolin, Song, Chongmin

Authors: Natarajan, Sundararajan , Ooi, Ean Tat , Birk, Carolin , Song, Chongmin
Date: 2022
Type: Text , Journal article
Relation: International Journal of Fracture Vol. 236, no. 1 (2022), p. 87-108
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Description: Based on the error indicator computed from the scaled boundary equations, a quadtree based adaptive phase-field method is proposed for dynamic brittle fracture problems in isotropic material using the scaled boundary finite element method (SBFEM). The use of SBFEM alleviates the need for additional: (a) constraints to handle hanging nodes resulting from adaptive refinement and (b) post-processing techniques. Three representative examples are solved to demonstrate the efficiency of the proposed approach. From the numerical study, it is opined that the proposed approach requires an order of magnitude fewer degrees of freedom when compared to uniform refinement and can capture the crack morphology under dynamic loading conditions without compromising accuracy. © 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature B.V.

Adiposity as a risk factor for sport injury in youth : a systematic review

- Toomey, Clodagh, Whittaker, Jackie, Richmond, Sarah, Owoeye, Oluwatoyosi, Patton, Declan, Emery, Carolyn

Authors: Toomey, Clodagh , Whittaker, Jackie , Richmond, Sarah , Owoeye, Oluwatoyosi , Patton, Declan , Emery, Carolyn
Date: 2022
Type: Text , Journal article , Review
Relation: Clinical Journal of Sport Medicine Vol. 32, no. 4 (2022), p. 418-426
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Description: Objective: To determine whether high or low adiposity is associated with youth sport-related injury.Data Sources: Ten electronic databases were searched to identify prospective studies examining the association between adiposity [body mass index (BMI) or body fat] and a future time-loss or medical attention sport-related musculoskeletal injury or concussion in youth aged 20 years and younger. Two independent raters assessed the quality (Downs and Black criteria) and risk of bias (Joanna Briggs Institute Critical Appraisal Tool). Random-effects meta-analyses were used to calculate pooled odds ratio [95% confidence interval (CI)] of injury.Main Results: Of 11 424 potentially relevant records, 38 articles were included with 17 eligible for meta-analyses. In qualitative synthesis, no clear association was identified between adiposity and any sport injury; however, 16/22 studies identified high adiposity as a significant risk factor for lower-extremity injury. Meta-analyses revealed higher BMI in youth with any sport-related injury and lower BMI in youth who developed a bone stress injury (BSI) compared with noninjured controls. The pooled OR (95% CI) examining the association of BMI and injury risk (excluding bone injury) was 1.18 (95% CI: 1.03-1.34). A major source of bias in included articles was inconsistent adjustment for age, sex, and physical activity participation.Conclusions: Level 2b evidence suggests that high BMI is associated with greater risk of youth sport injury, particularly lower-extremity injury and excluding BSI or fracture. Although pooled mean differences were low, anthropometric risk of injury seems to be dependent on type and site of injury in youth sport. © 2021 Wolters Kluwer Health, Inc.

- Stavropoulos, Vasileios, Barber, Emily, de Sena Collier, Gabriel, Snodgrass, Jeffrey, Gomez, Rapson

Authors: Stavropoulos, Vasileios , Barber, Emily , de Sena Collier, Gabriel , Snodgrass, Jeffrey , Gomez, Rapson
Date: 2022
Type: Text , Journal article
Relation: Child Psychiatry and Human Development Vol. 53, no. 6 (2022), p. 1097-1109
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Description: Peer popularity constitutes a pivotal developmental task to adolescents’ current and future adaptation. This study identified distinct adolescent popularity profiles and explored their links with excessive Internet usage and interpersonal sensitivity. The sample included 2090 students attending Greek high schools (Mage = 16.16, SD = 0.91). Their popularity was measured via self-report and peer sociometric means. They also responded to the Internet Addiction Test (IAT) and the Interpersonal Sensitivity subscale of the Symptom Checklist-90-Revised (SCL-90-R). A sequence of latent profile analysis, ANOVAs and linear regression models were performed. Three distinct popularity profiles were revealed: the “Average Confident” (68.4%), the “Socially Vulnerable” (26.8%), and the “Insecure Bi-Strategic” (4.8%). These profiles did not significantly vary regarding their Internet usage and interpersonal sensitivity behaviours. Interestingly, lower self-perceived popularity predicted higher interpersonal sensitivity, whereas higher actual popularity predicted excessive Internet use. Findings have important implications for student-tailored mental health prevention and intervention practices. © 2021, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature.

Adversarial training for deep learning-based cyberattack detection in IoT-based smart city applications

- Rashid, Md Mamunur, Kamruzzaman, Joarder, Mehedi Hassan, Mohammad, Imam, Tasadduq, Wibowo, Santoso, Gordon, Steven, Fortino, Giancarlo

Authors: Rashid, Md Mamunur , Kamruzzaman, Joarder , Mehedi Hassan, Mohammad , Imam, Tasadduq , Wibowo, Santoso , Gordon, Steven , Fortino, Giancarlo
Date: 2022
Type: Text , Journal article
Relation: Computers and Security Vol. 120, no. (2022), p.
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Description: Intrusion Detection Systems (IDS) based on deep learning models can identify and mitigate cyberattacks in IoT applications in a resilient and systematic manner. These models, which support the IDS's decision, could be vulnerable to a cyberattack known as adversarial attack. In this type of attack, attackers create adversarial samples by introducing small perturbations to attack samples to trick a trained model into misclassifying them as benign applications. These attacks can cause substantial damage to IoT-based smart city models in terms of device malfunction, data leakage, operational outage and financial loss. To our knowledge, the impact of and defence against adversarial attacks on IDS models in relation to smart city applications have not been investigated yet. To address this research gap, in this work, we explore the effect of adversarial attacks on the deep learning and shallow machine learning models by using a recent IoT dataset and propose a method using adversarial retraining that can significantly improve IDS performance when confronting adversarial attacks. Simulation results demonstrate that the presence of adversarial samples deteriorates the detection accuracy significantly by above 70% while our proposed model can deliver detection accuracy above 99% against all types of attacks including adversarial attacks. This makes an IDS robust in protecting IoT-based smart city services. © 2022 Elsevier Ltd

Agoraphilic navigation algorithm in dynamic environment with obstacles motion tracking and prediction

- Hewawasam, Hasitha, Ibrahim, Yousef, Kahandawa, Gayan, Choudhury, Tanveer

Authors: Hewawasam, Hasitha , Ibrahim, Yousef , Kahandawa, Gayan , Choudhury, Tanveer
Date: 2022
Type: Text , Journal article
Relation: Robotica Vol. 40, no. 2 (2022), p. 329-347
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Description: This paper presents a new algorithm to navigate robots in dynamically cluttered environments. The proposed algorithm uses basic concepts of space attraction (hence the term Agoraphilic) to navigate robots through dynamic obstacles. The new algorithm in this paper is an advanced development of the original Agoraphilic navigation algorithm that was only able to navigate robots in static environments. The Agoraphilic algorithm does not look for obstacles (problems) to avoid but rather for a free space (solutions) to follow. Therefore, it is also described as an optimistic navigation algorithm. This algorithm uses only one attractive force created by the available free space. The free-space concept allows the Agoraphilic algorithm to overcome inherited challenges of general navigation algorithms. However, the original Agoraphilic algorithm has the limitation in navigating robots only in static, not in dynamic environments. The presented algorithm was developed to address this limitation of the original Agoraphilic algorithm. The new algorithm uses a developed object tracking module to identify the time-varying free spaces by tracking moving obstacles. The capacity of the algorithm was further strengthened by the new prediction module. Future space prediction allowed the algorithm to make decisions considering future growing/diminishing free spaces. This paper also includes a bench-marking study of the new algorithm compared with a recently published APF-based algorithm under a similar operating environment. Furthermore, the algorithm was validated based on experimental tests and simulation tests. © 2022 Cambridge University Press. All rights reserved.

Agoraphilic navigation algorithm under dynamic environment

- Hewawasam, Hasitha, Ibrahim, Yousef, Appuhamillage, Gayan, Choudhury, Tanveer

Authors: Hewawasam, Hasitha , Ibrahim, Yousef , Appuhamillage, Gayan , Choudhury, Tanveer
Date: 2022
Type: Text , Journal article
Relation: IEEE/ASME Transactions on Mechatronics Vol. 27, no. 3 (2022), p. 1727-1737
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Description: This article presents a summary of the work done on the development of a new algorithm for mobile robot navigation in unknown dynamic environment. The developed humanlike algorithm uses a free-space attraction (Agoraphilic) concept for robot navigation. The algorithm presented in this article is an advanced development of the Agoraphilic navigation algorithm. The Agoraphilic algorithm does not look for obstacles (problems) to avoid but rather for free spaces toward the goal (solutions) to follow. The original Agoraphilic while it was able to overcome the limitations of the traditional algorithms had its own limitations in navigating robots in environments cluttered with moving obstacles. The new Agoraphilic Navigation Algorithm under Dynamic Environment (ANADE) was developed to overcome those limitations. ANADE consists of seven main modules reported in this article. The objects tracking and objects prediction methodologies developed for the algorithm estimate future growing free-space passages toward the goal. The algorithm generates a time-varying single attractive force to pull the robot through the free space toward the predicted (future) growing free-space passages leading to the goal. The new algorithm was tested, not only through simulation, but also through experimental work. Summary of the experimental results is presented and discussed in this article. © 1996-2012 IEEE.

Agriculture management and seasonal impact on soil properties, water, sediment and chemicals transport in a hazelnut orchard (Croatia)

- Dugan, Ivan, Pereira, Paulo, Barcelo, Damia, Telak, Leon Josip, Filipovic, Vilim, Filipovic, Lana, Kisic, Ivica, Bogunovic, Igor

Authors: Dugan, Ivan , Pereira, Paulo , Barcelo, Damia , Telak, Leon Josip , Filipovic, Vilim , Filipovic, Lana , Kisic, Ivica , Bogunovic, Igor
Date: 2022
Type: Text , Journal article
Relation: Science of the Total Environment Vol. 839, no. (2022), p. 156346-156346
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Description: Soil and water conservation practices are key to agroecosystems sustainability and avoiding diffuse pollution. Here, we compare the impacts of different types of mulch, barley straw (Straw), wooden chips (Chip) and tillage (Till) on vegetation mulch cover (VMC) soil properties, bulk density (BD), mean weight diameter (MWD), water stable aggregates (WSA), soil water content (SWC), soil organic matter (SOM), pH and total phosphorous (P), potassium (K), calcium (Ca), chromium (Cr), manganese (Mn), iron (Fe), nickel (Ni), copper (Cu), Zinc (Zn) and lead (Pb). We also assessed the ponding time (PT), runoff time (RT), runoff, sediment concentration (SC), sediment loss (SL) and chemicals transport (the same studied in soil). A set of rainfall simulation experiments (90 in total) was applied in the different Spring, Summer, and Fall treatments. The results showed that mulch increased VMC in all the seasons, while other properties (BD MWD, WSA SOM, pH) were not affected, especially in Spring. The biggest impact was observed in Fall, especially in the Till plot, due to the tillage practices applied in Summer. Mulch increased PT, RT and reduced runoff, SL and chemicals transport. Chemical losses were very much associated with SL, and the concentration of P and metals in soil depended on soil Ca and pH. SWC, MWD and runoff were inversely related to PT, RT and SC. Finally, BD, VMC and SOM were highly associated. Overall, tillage practices dramatically impact SL, and diffuse pollution and urgent measures are needed to reverse this. Mulching is excellent and cost-effective to mitigate the impacts of agriculture on land degradation and diffuse pollution. [Display omitted] •Impacts of season and soil management were studied in a hazelnut orchard.•Season had a strong impact on hydrological response.•Water, sediment and chemicals loss were high in Fall.•Tillage increased the chemicals transport.•Sustainable measures are needed to revert the tillage impact.

All that glitters : telling the fiftieth anniversary story of gold at Sovereign Hill

- Reeves, Keir, Mountford, Benjamin

Authors: Reeves, Keir , Mountford, Benjamin
Date: 2022
Type: Text , Journal article
Relation: Journal of Heritage Tourism Vol. 17, no. 4 (2022), p. 448-464
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Description: The fiftieth anniversary of Sovereign Hill, an iconic Australian tourism destination, provides a key point to consider the curatorial and historical perspectives of the museum’s past. This article considers its role and place as a regional community institution and its approach to telling the local, national, and international histories of the gold rush era of the mid-nineteenth century. Since opening in 1970, Sovereign Hill has provided millions of visitors with a living window onto the history of the Australian gold rushes, particularly the longitudinal impact of gold discoveries on the regional city of Ballarat. The article analyses how Sovereign Hill has sought to manage the ongoing dynamic tension between curatorial and historical interpretation with the commercial imperatives of being a premier heritage tourism destination, from the 1970s down to the era of COVID-19. © 2022 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

An effective traffic management approach for decentralized BSNs

- Zahid, Noman, Alkhayyat, Ahmed, Ismail, Muhammad, Sodhro, Ali

Authors: Zahid, Noman , Alkhayyat, Ahmed , Ismail, Muhammad , Sodhro, Ali
Date: 2022
Type: Text , Conference paper
Relation: 96th IEEE Vehicular Technology Conference, VTC 2022-Fall 2022, London, 26-29 September 2022, 2022 IEEE 96th Vehicular Technology Conference (VTC2022-Fall) Proceedings Vol. 2022-September
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Description: Wireless technology and sensing devices are playing an important role in healthcare, known as Body Sensor Networks (BSNs). Existing wearable technologies process vast amounts of data with critical quality of service (QoS) requirements in terms of delay, reliability, and throughput. This study provides a traffic prioritizing strategy that ensures synchronization, optimal traffic control, and resource optimization. It includes a method for reducing delay and enhancing throughput, and the energy efficiency of BSNs. In addition, we investigated that implementation of access periods improves the channel accessing strategy for high priority nodes with increased starvation for high data rates in low priority nodes. M/G/1/K queue with finite buffer is implemented to overcome poor resource utilization. Simulation results showed that implementing a finite buffer had enhanced resource utilization in terms of higher throughput and bandwidth efficiency. © 2022 IEEE.

An electromyographic assessment pilot study on the reliability of the forearm muscles during multi-planar maximum voluntary contraction grip and wrist articulation in young males

- Hunter, Henry, Sorbie, Graeme, Grace, Fergal, Gu, Yaodong, Lam, Wing-Kai, Baker, Julien, Dutheil, Frederic, Dias, Tilak, Ugbolue, Ukadike

Authors: Hunter, Henry , Sorbie, Graeme , Grace, Fergal , Gu, Yaodong , Lam, Wing-Kai , Baker, Julien , Dutheil, Frederic , Dias, Tilak , Ugbolue, Ukadike
Date: 2022
Type: Text , Journal article
Relation: Technology and Health Care Vol. 30, no. 3 (2022), p. 713-724
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Description: BACKGROUND: Electromyographic systems are widely used in scientific and clinical practice. The reproducibility and reliability of these measures are crucial when conducting scientific research and collecting experimental data. OBJECTIVE: To test the reliability of surface electromyography signals from both the Flexor Digitorum Superficialis (FDS) and Extensor Carpi Radialis Brevis (ECRB) muscles of both the left and right arms during an individual, static multi-planar maximum voluntary contraction handgrip task using the Myon 320 system (Myon AG, Switzerland). METHODS: Eight right-handed male participants performed two maximal handgrip tests in five separate wrist positions using both hands. Muscle activity was recorded from both forearms. Reliability was measured using the Standard Error of Measurement (SEM), Coefficient of Variation (CV) and Intra-class correlation coefficients. Wrist joint position correlations within and between the FDS and ECRB muscle activities were also analysed. RESULTS: Absolute reliability was shown across all positions for both hands with CV and SEM recorded at below 10%. The output measures indicate that the Myon 320 system (Myon AG, Switzerland) produces good to fair reliability when assessing forearm muscle activity. Correlations in the left FDS muscles were negative. Correlations between the left ECRB and left FDS muscles were variable but positive between the right ECRB and right FDS muscles. CONCLUSIONS: The data sets retrieved from all participants were reliably evaluated. Wrist position correlations within and between the FDS and ECRB muscles may have been influenced by hand dominance. The findings demonstrate that the methods and systems outlined in this study can be used reliably in future research. © 2022 - IOS Press. All rights reserved.

An exploration of the trajectory of psychological distress associated with exposure to smoke during the 2014 Hazelwood coal mine fire

- Carroll, Matthew, Campbell, Timothy, Smith, Catherine, Gao, Caroline, Maybery, Darryl, Berger, Emily, Brown, David, Allgood, Shantelle, Broder, Jonathan, Ikin, Jillian, McFarlane, Alexander, Sim, Malcolm, Walker, Judi, Abramson, Michael

Authors: Carroll, Matthew , Campbell, Timothy , Smith, Catherine , Gao, Caroline , Maybery, Darryl , Berger, Emily , Brown, David , Allgood, Shantelle , Broder, Jonathan , Ikin, Jillian , McFarlane, Alexander , Sim, Malcolm , Walker, Judi , Abramson, Michael
Date: 2022
Type: Text , Journal article
Relation: International Journal of Hygiene and Environmental Health Vol. 241, no. (2022), p.
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Description: Due to climate change, catastrophic events such as landscape fires are increasing in frequency and severity. However, relatively little is known about the longer-term mental health outcomes of such events. Follow-up was conducted of 709 adults exposed to smoke from the 2014 Hazelwood mine fire in Morwell, Victoria, Australia. Participants completed two surveys evaluating posttraumatic distress, measured using the Impact of Events Scale-Revised (IES-R), three and six years after the mine fire. Mixed-effects regression models were used to evaluate longitudinal changes in distress. IES-R total scores increased on average by 2.6 points (95%CI: 1.2 to 3.9 points) between the two survey rounds, with increases across all three posttraumatic distress symptom clusters, particularly intrusive symptoms. This increase in distress was evident across all levels of fine particulate matter (PM2.5) exposure to the mine fire smoke. Age was an effect modifier between mine fire PM2.5 exposure and posttraumatic distress, with younger adults impacted more by exposure to the mine fire. Greater exposure to PM2.5 from the mine fire was still associated with increased psychological distress some six years later, with the overall level of distress increasing between the two survey rounds. The follow-up survey coincided with the Black Summer bushfire season in south-eastern Australia and exposure to this new smoke event may have triggered distress sensitivities stemming from exposure to the earlier mine fire. Public health responses to disaster events should take into consideration prior exposures and vulnerable groups, particularly younger adults. © 2022 Elsevier GmbH

An exploratory and quantitative assessment of the sustainable competitiveness of supply chain: Evidence from Indian sugar industry

- Sheetal,, Singh, Randeep, Kumar, Rajiv

Authors: Sheetal, , Singh, Randeep , Kumar, Rajiv
Date: 2022
Type: Text , Journal article
Relation: Journal of public affairs Vol. 22, no. 3 (2022), p. n/a
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Description: The main aim of this paper is to examine the effect of prominent forces on the sustainable competitiveness of the Indian sugar supply chain with the role of government as a moderator. A survey involving managers working in Indian sugar companies was conducted and partial least square (PLS) method was used to test the proposed research model. The findings supported the positive relationshipbetween suppliers' power and competitiveness suppliers and industry rivalry buyers' power and industry rivalry and government dynamics and competitiveness in the discussed industry. Furthermore, entry barriers exerted a hypothesized negative relationship with competitiveness. The government is working as a moderator between the suppliers' (sugarcane growers') power and the competitiveness of the discussed industry as hypothesized. This study discerns the foundational literature from extant research work lays down basic underpinnings for contextual discussion on competitive forces in the discussed industry and adds empirical facet by surveying the industry professionals. These findings may draw the attention of incumbents, industry practitioners, academicians, and policy‐makers to the impact that selected environmental forces have on competitive landscape of the sugar industry.

An in silico derived dosage and administration guide for effective thermochemical ablation of biological tissues with simultaneous injection of acid and base

- Mak, Nguoy, Ooi, Ean, Lau, Ee, Ooi, Ean Tat, Pamidi, Narendra, Foo, Ji, Mohd Ali, Ahmad

Authors: Mak, Nguoy , Ooi, Ean , Lau, Ee , Ooi, Ean Tat , Pamidi, Narendra , Foo, Ji , Mohd Ali, Ahmad
Date: 2022
Type: Text , Journal article
Relation: Computer Methods and Programs in Biomedicine Vol. 227, no. (2022), p.
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Description: Background and objectives: Thermochemical ablation (TCA) is a thermal ablation technique involving the injection of acid and base, either sequentially or simultaneously, into the target tissue. TCA remains at the conceptual stage with existing studies unable to provide recommendations on the optimum injection rate, and reagent concentration and volume. Limitations in current experimental methodology have prevented proper elucidation of the thermochemical processes inside the tissue during TCA. Nevertheless, the computational TCA framework developed recently by Mak et al. [Mak et al., Computers in Biology and Medicine, 2022, 145:105494] has opened new avenues in the development of TCA. Specifically, a recommended safe dosage is imperative in driving TCA research beyond the conceptual stage. Methods: The aforesaid computational TCA framework for sequential injection was applied and adapted to simulate TCA with simultaneous injection of acid and base at equimolar and equivolume. The developed framework, which describes the flow of acid and base, their neutralisation, the rise in tissue temperature and the formation of thermal damage, was solved numerically using the finite element method. The framework will be used to investigate the effects of injection rate, reagent concentration, volume and type (weak/strong acid-base combination) on temperature rise and thermal coagulation formation. Results: A higher injection rate resulted in higher temperature rise and larger thermal coagulation. Reagent concentration of 7500 mol/m3 was found to be optimum in producing considerable thermal coagulation without the risk of tissue overheating. Thermal coagulation volume was found to be consistently larger than the total volume of acid and base injected into the tissue, which is beneficial as it reduces the risk of chemical burn injury. Three multivariate second-order polynomials that express the targeted coagulation volume as functions of injection rate and reagent volume, for the weak-weak, weak-strong and strong-strong acid-base combinations were also derived based on the simulated data. Conclusions: A guideline for a safe and effective implementation of TCA with simultaneous injection of acid and base was recommended based on the numerical results of the computational model developed. The guideline correlates the coagulation volume with the reagent volume and injection rate, and may be used by clinicians in determining the safe dosage of reagents and optimum injection rate to achieve a desired thermal coagulation volume during TCA. © 2022 Elsevier B.V.

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