Basis Of Empirical Data Research Articles

Non-targeted screening of trace organic contaminants in surface waters by a multi-tool approach based on combinatorial analysis of tandem mass spectra and open access databases

Non-targeted screening (NTS) in mass spectrometry (MS) helps alleviate the shortcoming of targeted analysis such as missing the presence of concerning compounds that are not monitored and its lack of retrospective analysis to subsequently look for new contaminants. Most NTS workflows include high resolution tandem mass spectrometry (HRMS2) and structure annotation with libraries which are still limited. However, in silico combinatorial fragmentation tools that simulate MS2 spectra are available to help close the gap of missing compounds in empirical libraries. Three NTS tools were combined and used to detect and identify unknown contaminants at ultra-trace levels in surface waters in real samples in this qualitative study. Two of them were based on combinatorial fragmentation databases, MetFrag and the Similar Partition Searching algorithm (SPS), and the third, the Global Natural Products Social Networking (GNPS), was an ensemble of empirical databases. The three NTS tools were applied to the analysis of real samples from a local river. A total of 253 contaminants were identified by combining all three tools: 209 were assigned a probable structure and 44 were confirmed using reference standards. The two major classes of contaminants observed were pharmaceuticals and consumer product additives. Among the confirmed compounds, octylphenol ethoxylates, denatonium, irbesartan and telmisartan are reported for the first time in surface waters in Canada. The workflow presented in this work uses three highly complementary NTS tools and it is a powerful approach to help identify and strategically select contaminants and their transformation products for subsequent targeted analysis and uncover new trends in surface water contamination.

Sleep disturbance in heart failure: A concept analysis.

This concept analysis aims to analyze the concept of sleep disturbance (SD) in the context of heart failure (HF) to guide the development of a clearly defined definition. The term "sleep disturbance" has been used in the literature to describe sleep problems and sleep disorders among individuals with HF. Environmental, physical, psychological, behavioral, and developmental factors complicate the phenomenon of SD in HF. Walker and Avant's method was used for this concept analysis. Published literature from 2000 to 2020 was identified from electronic health profession-related databases. The current definition and usages of SD were abstracted from empirical work and electronic databases. A focused review of abstracts and full text relating to SD in HF was performed. Studies featuring original data and peer-reviewed articles written in English were included to investigate the multifactorial contextual meaning of the concept. SD in HF can be described as a condition in which individuals experience difficulty initiating and maintaining sleep, and difficulty continuing or resuming sleep due to frequent nocturnal arousals due to HF symptoms, sleep-disordered breathing, insomnia, and psychological burdens. To evaluate SD in HF, clinicians must examine the underlying causes to provide the contextual meaning of the concept. A clearly defined and distinguishable concept of SD in HF provides a possibility for accurate measurements of sleep quality, exploring interventions, and evaluating outcomes.

Quand l’école rencontre la prévention sanitaire, collaborations professionnelles et appropriations différenciées

BackgroundThe French social security system has initiated a nutritional education program in nursery schools. On the basis of empirical data and a nursery school model compelling the application of specific standards, we analyze the conditions under which the program is implemented. MethodsA socio-ethnographic study was conducted during the 2012-2017 period in 16 classrooms in 6 nursery schools that implemented the nutritional program. This article presents the results of a monographic analysis drawn from data collected through interviews and the observation of nutritional sessions at school. ResultsThe pedagogical tools and the rationalization of tasks involving teachers and dietitians furthered adaptation to the constraints of nursery school functioning in accordance with the dietitians’ vision of the school. With the teachers’ feedback in mind, the nutritional program is called upon to evolve, but its evolution will not stand in the way of program rationalization and uniformization. Teachers will nevertheless implement the program in different ways, according to the realities of their classrooms. ConclusionWe studied and analyzed the conditions favorable to collaboration between nursery schools and the French social security system. Results showed how the “sanitarization” of nursery schools requires anticipation of the constraints imposed by the nursery school model. Conditions for organizing collaborative work necessitated both transformation of the health program and satisfactory coordination at school between the protagonists, thereby highlighting reciprocal influence and adjustment between two (dietitians and teachers) work cultures.

Preliminary tsunami analytical fragility functions proposal for Italian coastal residential masonry buildings

Scientific community showed particular interest in tsunami risk assessment in the last years due to several worldwide tsunami events where high damages and human casualties were recorded during post-event surveys.This paper investigates the behaviour of Italian coastal residential masonry buildings under tsunami loads. Main fragility curves available in literature are based on empirical databases and consequentially, the structural behaviour is strictly related to local building typologies of other countries.For masonry buildings, it is complex to predict global response due to high material inhomogeneity, especially in the case of regional scale analysis; a critical review on local mechanisms activation of masonry walls under tsunami loads is briefly performed. Therefore, local mechanisms activation for masonry walls are investigated depending on out-of-plane and in-plane mechanisms assuming flexural and shear failure.Structures designed for gravity or seismic loads are generated based on several building classes depending on number of storeys and age of construction. Monte Carlo analyses generated building models for each identified building class to simulate the behaviour of Italian masonry buildings.Preliminary analytical tsunami fragility curves are developed in order to assess the vulnerability of Italian coastal residential masonry buildings under tsunami loads. A critical review is proposed on developed fragility curves.

Preventive Measures for Health Professionals in COVID-19

BACKGROUND
 COVID-19 or coronavirus disease 2019 is affecting all inhabitants on the earth and most affected section of the society which is also a crucial aspect of the mitigation measures is health care professionals.
 SUMMARY
 COVID-19 or coronavirus disease 2019 is raging across the world with increasing number of infected cases and associated case fatalities. Health care professionals are among worst hit section and several of them laid their live in the line of duty of COVID-19 mitigation. It is therefore importantto safeguard them through this pandemic and ensure proper care of them is taken.
 CONCLUSION
 Best practices must be followed in order to ensure the safety of the front-line workers such as doctors and allied health care givers. More study can be done to broaden the base of available empirical data of factors affecting the safety of them.

Investigation of pillar damage mechanisms and rock-support interaction using Bonded Block Models

In this study, Bonded Block Models (BBMs) are used to investigate the pillar damage mechanisms and rock-support interaction in massive-to-sparsely-fractured rockmasses. Hypothetical granite pillar models of width-to-height (W/H) ratio of 1, 2 and 3 are developed, and the input parameters are constrained by matching the stress-strain response of the BBMs to the stress-strain curves from FLAC3D models that were previously calibrated to an empirical pillar strength database. Two different block representations are also considered – elastic and inelastic. It was found that inelastic blocks are necessary to capture the behavioral transition from strain-softening to pseudo-ductile with increase in pillar W/H.Post-calibration, different rockbolt combinations are tested in the BBM and their influence on the pillar strength and lateral deformations are analyzed. It was found that as the support density is increased, the peak pillar strengths also increase but the effect is dependent on the W/H. Deformation of the outer stress-fractured region and bulking systematically decreased with increasing support density, but the exact trend evolved as the pillars were loaded to various points on their stress-strain curves. Lastly, a BBM pillar was developed with explicit intra-block fracturing capability (i.e., individual blocks could break) and the support analysis was repeated. The goal was to understand if the continuum representation of damage within the inelastic blocks led to some underestimation of the rock-support interaction mechanism. It was ultimately concluded that the continuum inelastic representation of smaller-scale damage within individual blocks allows for a more appropriate representation of the rock-support interaction than the explicit intra-block representation.

Identification and assessment of direct and indirect economic effects of the sports sector on the economy

The sports sector makes a significant multilateral contribution to the development of economic systems. This study examines the scale and structure of the impact of the sports sector on the economy. Direct and indirect effects of such an impact are highlighted. The significance of the indirect socio-economic effects of major sporting events is illustrated by the example of the 2013 Universiade project in Kazan. On the basis of empirical data, the growth of sports activity of the population of the Republic of Tatarstan during the Universiade is shown. Using previously obtained econometric models on the indirect effects of the growth of the sports activity of the population, the indirect socio-economic effects of the Universiade were estimated: the infrastructural effect, a decrease in health care costs, an increase in labor productivity, additional income from tourism, and the creation of additional social capital. An extended model for assessing the payback of large sporting events, including investments in the infrastructure capital of the region and a number of intangible assets, is proposed and tested.

Lessons of the pandemic as an incentive to modernize the support system for people with disabilities

The relevance of this study is determined by the need for an objective assessment of changes in the socio-economic situation of the population most vulnerable categories, in particular persons with disabilities, during the coronavirus pandemic. The past 2020 was marked by large-scale changes in the daily life of the population, especially its vulnerable categories. People with disabilities have experienced stress not only due to the need for self-isolation, but also due to a decrease in the availability and quality of critical areas of life. The purpose of this work is to formulate proposals aimed at improving social policy in relation to people with disabilities in Russia, taking into account the consequences of the coronavirus pandemic. The information base of the work was formed by the results of a sociological survey, demonstrating the changes that have occurred during the coronavirus pandemic in the financial situation of people with disabilities, the availability of health care and social protection services for them, psychological state and behavior. It is shown how much the help of volunteers and distance selling were in demand during this period on the part of the disabled. It was found that disabled people living alone were less likely to notice the impact of the pandemic and the introduced quarantine measures on their lives. Among the answers of the lonely respondents, there was also a large share of negative assessments which showed us that society is not ready for integration, the possibility of an independent life, and the media activities in terms of covering the problems which people with disabilities have. The novelty of the study is in identifying the differentiation of the reaction of people with disabilities to a pandemic situation, depending on the type of disabilities observed in them, as well as on the influence of the living alone factor. It is also substantiated that during the period of self-isolation, distance selling played a compensatory role, reducing the tension of the problem with the inaccessibility of the environment for the disabled. On the basis of empirical data, it was confirmed that the period of the pandemic was associated with a decrease in the accessibility of services in the field of health care and social protection for people with disabilities. In the final part of the study, recommendations were formulated regarding the improvement of the social support existing system for people with disabilities, taking into account the experience of the changes that occurred in the life of the group during the coronavirus pandemic.

Horizontal and vertical aspects of political elections in Ukraine

Horizontal and vertical aspects of political elections and their influence on voting process in Ukraine are analyzed in this article. The basic trends of electoral behavior of the citizens of Ukraine are revealed on the basis of empirical data of election campaigns and politicians activity. The factors that influence on the democratic nature of the elections of 2014 and 2019, as well as the reasons for citizens distrust of politicians are studied. These reasons include electoral volatility, which is influenced by the populism of politicians and the citizens frustration of the elected parties activity as well as misinformation during electoral campaign

Estimating Security Risk of Healthcare Web Applications: A Design Perspective

In the recent years, the booming web-based applications have attracted the hackers’ community. The security risk of the web-based hospital management system (WBHMS) has been increasing rapidly. In the given context, the main goal of all security professionals and website developers is to maintain security divisions and improve on the user’s confidence and satisfaction. At this point, the different WBHMS tackle different types of security risks. In WBHMS, the security of the patients’ medical information is of utmost importance. All in all, there is an inherent security risk of data and assets in the field of the medical industry as a whole. The objective of this study is to estimate the security risk assessment of WBHMS. The risks assessment pertains to securing the integrity of the information in alignment with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act. This includes protecting the relevant financial records, as well as the identification, evaluation, and prevention of a data breach. In the past few years, according to the US-based cyber-security firm <i>Fire-eye</i>, 6.8 million data thefts have been recorded in the healthcare sector in India. The breach barometer report mentions that in the year 2019, the data breaches found were up to 48.6% as compared to the year 2018. Therefore, it is very important to assess the security risk in WBHMS. In this research, we have followed the hybrid technique fuzzy analytic hierarchy process-technique for order of preference by similarity to ideal solution (F-AHPTOPSIS) approach to assess the security risk in WBHMS. The place of this empirical database is at the local hospital of Varanasi, U.P., India. Given the affectability of WBHMS for its board framework, this work has used diverse types of web applications. The outcomes obtained and the procedure used in this assessment would support future researchers and specialists in organizing web applications through advanced support of safety and security.

Central counterparty capital and nondefault losses

This paper analyses the components of central counterparty (CCP) capital requirements and makes several observations on the potential for loss absorption. Our first observation on default losses appears to be widely understood in the industry: as long as the CCP is not prevented from following the standard loss waterfall in its rule book, any losses that arise directly from member defaults can be absorbed by using existing CCP resources together with rule book powers to allocate any excess losses back to surviving members. Our second observation is a new frequency/severity result on nondefault losses. These are losses that are not directly due to a member default or are not covered by the rule book: the chance that such a loss exceeds the regulatory capital actually held is a very rare (at most, a two in a thousand) event. Moreover, the expected shortfall of such an event is an insurable quantum of less than one year’s profit to the healthy CCP. In the absence of an empirical database on CCP losses, these observations are ultimately inferred from comparable loss data from the 2008 Bank for International Settlements Loss Data Collection Exercise and from tail loss severity parameters implicit in existing CCP regulatory capital requirements.

Figurative Language in the German-Speaking Press Abroad

This article is based on the understanding that figurative linguistic signs are in general a common research topic in the media language but represent a desideratum especially with regard to the German-speaking press abroad. Against this background, some of the figurative and formulaic related observations as well as the results of a current research project are thematised and discussed. The primary goal is a focused evidence-based analysis – more precisely: a theory-based qualitative exploration – of special features of figurative language use in three German-language minority newspapers from Russia, Kazakhstan and Hungary. In addition, manifestations of culturality are developed in the analysed media discourse, which is characterised by multilingualism and interculturality or rather transculturality. The approach is not normative and error-analytical, but descriptive and primarily contact- or intercultural-oriented.Among other things, it was found that the empirical database provided only relatively few figurative phrases. The findings include that other textual mechanisms prevail and due to the multilingual settings the text producers adopt fixed syntactic schemes from the contact languages. On the producer side, a German-based figurative language is generally used, but it is congruent with the figurativity of the respective contact language (in the present case: Russian, Kazakh and Hungarian), including Russian/Kazakh/Hungarian-oriented framings. In this context, the dominant feature is constituted of (virulent or latent) language contact-related phenomena with some dynamics: primarily transference formations of different kinds. At the same time, it cannot be ignored that the language and text (types) competence and especially the figurative competence of the text producers in the area of conceptual-writing skills vary widely and are often not comparable to those of federal German journalists.

Soil and Water Bioengineering Applications in Central and South America: A Transferability Analysis

The present work describes a transferability analysis for soil and water bioengineering techniques as an instrument for sustainable erosion control in Central and South America based on an empirical data base from the last decades. In total, 31 case studies in Mexico, Nicaragua, Guatemala, Colombia, Ecuador and Brazil generated a database from an area where soil and water bioengineering techniques are not commonly used. The Transferability Analysis is structured in seven steps: (1) Objectives of the procedure, (2) Impacts of the measure, (3) Identification of up-scaling/down-scaling needs (4) Identification of the main phases and its components, (5) Identification of the level of importance of the components, (6) Assessment of the components in the context of the Take-Up Site and (7) Conclusions. For the assessment of soil and water bioengineering via the Transferability Analysis, in step 4 the following main phases have been identified from the data base: (a) Planning Phase, (b) Construction Phase, (c) Use Phase, as well as (d) End of Life Phase of a construction. Within these categories, 14 components have been defined: (a) know-how of soil and water bioengineering techniques, local climate conditions, botany, hydraulics, pedology; (b) materials, qualified labor, equipment and mechanical instruments, economic resources; (c) monitoring, efficiency, sustainability, maintenance; (d) replicability. The following assessment of the components allowed to determine key barriers, as well as key support factors for the transfer of soil and water bioengineering. As a result, barriers appeared to be the components qualified labor, equipment/mechanical instruments, hydraulics, know-how in soil and water bioengineering and pedology. Neither barriers, nor supporting key factors resulted to be the components local climate conditions, economic resources and efficiency. Supporting key factors for the transfer were materials, monitoring, sustainability, maintenance and replicability. The most important key factor of success was assessed to be botany, as various plant species with important characteristics for soil and water bioengineering are available in Central and South America, able to compensate the constraints through barriers in certain cases.

DEVELOPMENT OF MOBILE MARKETING IT PROJECTS: OPPORTUNITIES FOR MOLDOVA AND UKRAINE

This article describes the main problematic issues and modern approaches to managing and developing mobile marketing IT projects. In this study, the authors set the goal of the study – to analyze the features of IT project management in mobile marketing, to systematize the development models of modern web projects and to study the possibilities of using flexible applied methodologies that formalize the development and modification of web applications based on the use of effective methods for managing IT projects in mobile marketing. To achieve this research goal, the authors used theoretical and conceptual analysis, studied existent empirical databases for the mobile application market in the Republic of Moldova and Ukraine. The authors highlighted the critical problems of using agile methodologies in IT projects of mobile marketing. A comparative analysis of the feature’s applicability of IT project management methodologies and problems of their using in mobile marketing applications are presented. The logical and structural diagram of the stages of the Mobile App Design Timeline is proposed, which contributes to increasing the effectiveness of the implementation of information technology projects in general. To assess the applicability of the flexible methodologies of Kanban and Scrum, an IT project of mobile marketing was simulated. The significance of the results obtained is predetermined by the fact that they could form a theoretical base for improving the effectiveness of marketing activity under conditions of the informatization of society through the building a selforganizing team and use of agile methodologies in mobile marketing IT projects.

New Image Classification Framework for Improving Image Retrieval Based on Relevance Feedback (Dept.E)

Content-based image retrieval (CBIR) is a promising technology to assist image finding, CBIR retrieves images by visual features inherent in images. Relevance feedback allows the user to reflect his preference to the system, then the system can reformulate the query according to the positive and/or negative examples responded by the user. This paper presents two efficient frameworks for image classification through the analysis of the visual features (such as color, shape, texture) of an example image. The first framework is based on comparing the norm and the direction of vectors ia multi-dimensional space for both the target and query image vectors, which allows classification according to their probabilities oli existence. The second framework depends on acquiring classification knowledge from a large empirical image database in a specific domain and utilizes that knowledge for image classification. The initial classification process is used as a training phase to feed the system with a classification tree for images in the retrieval domain. This tree is the best reduction of dimensionality that would result from all possible combinations of feature divisions.

Financial Potential Analysis of Forestry Enterprises of Ukraine on the Taxonomy Method Basis

Abstract In the article the method of analysis of financial potential using taxonomy method has been developed as well as it has been tested on the basis of empirical data of Ukrainian forestry enterprises. The application of such a method made it possible to construct a rating assessment of a complex and multifactorial economic object – the financial potential, using algorithms of systematization to multidimensional quantities. The authors present the stages of application of analytical procedures for assessing the dynamics of taxonomic indicators of financial potential as well as for constructing the rating of the suggested business entities. An innovative model of financial potential of forestry enterprises is proposed, which will allow to identify the complex of properties of an object as a basis for forming a set of analytical procedures for assessing its state. The obtained results of the analysis can serve as the basis for constructing a management strategy to optimize the financial potential of the enterprise.

Predicting Toxicity Parameters of Harmful Substances for Hydrobionts

The authorʼs procedure for predicting toxicity parameters of various harmful substances for hydrobionts (daphnia, infusoria) over a wide range of concentrations is described. Linear regression equations between the experimental and predicted toxicity parameters, which have been derived on the basis of empirical data, can be used as prognostic dependences.

Terrorism Threat Level in the Context of Modeling the Impact of Macroeconomic Indicators

The authors call terrorism a global threat and point out the necessity of studying this negative phenomenon on the basis of empirical data while taking into consideration regional specifics. They use the methodology of cluster analysis (SPSS Statistics software) of statistical data on the number of terrorism crimes to analyze the spread of this threat on the territory of the Russian Federation. Three centers of terrorism tensions have been identified: North Caucasian Federal District, Moscow and the Republic of Tatarstan. Besides, the authors attempted to establish a linear dependence between the dynamics of terrorism crimes and such factors as socio-economic situation and migration. The calculations showed that there is no cause-and-effect link between material status and terrorism. The socio-economic situation is not the key factor that creates the condition of terrorism threat, although its impact is considerate. This is equally just for the above-mentioned centers of tensions. Foreign researcher of this problem come to similar conclusions. Besides, the correlation between the migration coefficient (increase per 100 th. inhabitants) and the level of terrorism crimes has not been proven. At the same time, it is mentioned that the insufficiently external and internal migration processes influence the spread of extremism ideology. To prove this, the authors present information from the Court Department of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation, according to which in recent years the number of foreign citizens who commit terrorism crimes has been steadily growing, and they have been involved in practically all types of terrorism crimes. It is thus impossible to identify a single key factor of terrorism. The system determining terrorism crimes consists of a complex interaction of negative processes in all spheres of public life (economic, social, governance, ideological, criminal), which is reflected in the psychological state of society as a whole. It is expedient to pay special attention to the analysis of the personality of terrorists as well as persons who get involved in terrorism activities.

Intensifying fine-grained fluorite flotation process with a combination of in-situ modification and liquid-gas microdispersion

With the depletion of rich fluorite ore, flotation process suitable for fine-grained fluorite is of great necessity. In this study, such method was preliminarily developed with a combination of in-situ surface modification and gas-liquid microdispersion. By introducing additives into ball-milling, the interaction between reagents and particles was improved. Through exploitation of selective sedimentation of undesired minerals via pH adjustment, the flotation of fine-grained fluorite was achieved with little or even no depressant in this study. Using a well-designed membrane dispersion device, effective interaction between the particles and bubbles was achieved, with massive expansion of the surface area in a limited space, enabling continuous flotation in a miniaturized device. Satisfactory product grade and recovery were obtained while reducing the use of additives, along with significantly decreased costs related to energy consumption, wastewater and flue gas treatment, and facility investments. The mechanism of this flotation separation strategy was summarized on the basis of empirical data. The strategy was effectively and flexibly applied to fluorite ores with different particle sizes and surface properties.

Die Nominalisierung von Nebensätzen im Tschechischen

SummaryThe present article ties in with an earlier study by Chomsky (1970) on nominalizations in English, which was then refined primarily in the influential work of Jane Grimshaw (1990) and is dealt with in detail in Borer (2013) and in Kosta (2020). In contrast to the English gerundives, which do not lose verbal behavior due to the derivation in the syntax and maintain all grammatical categories and characteristics of verbs, which is why one can speak of a real conversion while preserving the verbal semantics, the situation is somewhat different in Czech. In the deverbal, deadjective and other derivations, the Czech apparently made the transition to the noun with its critical properties, which is shown by certain restrictions in the aspectuality marking of deverbal noun phraseson -ní-,-tí-, which, e. g., do not pass the progression durativity test (Vendler 1967). In passive constructions, as is well known, a valence point in the position of the external argument is reduced compared to the corresponding active sentences, while the external argument position in anti-causatives is also not available in the deep structure. In addition to the syntactic restrictions that are evident in nominalizations in the context of simple sentences of different sentence types (causative, anti-causative, passive) and demonstrate the nominal character of certain types of deverbal noun phrases in the first part of this article, the second part of the essay deals with more complex structures and extends its analytical and theoretical part to the phenomenon of nominalizing subordinate clauses. The aim of the central part of this contribution is therefore to test the nominal properties of embedded conjunctional sentences and of embedded headless relative sentences on the basis of empirical data and thus contribute to the knowledge of whether certain types of relative sentences can (or must) be nominalized.