Current Version Research Articles

Homeostatic Feelings and the Emergence of Consciousness.

In this article, we summarize our views on the problem of consciousness and outline the current version of a novel hypothesis for how conscious minds can be generated in mammalian organisms. We propose that a mind can be considered conscious when three processes are in place: the first is a continuous generation of interoceptive feelings, which results in experiencing of the organism's internal operations; the second is the equally continuous production of images, generated according to the organism's sensory perspective relative to its surround; the third combines feeling/experience and perspective resulting in a process of subjectivity relative to the image contents. We also propose a biological basis for these three components: the peripheral and central physiology of interoception and exteroception help explain the implementation of the first two components, whereas the third depends on central nervous system integration, at multiple levels, from spinal cord, brainstem, and diencephalic nuclei, to selected regions of the mesial cerebral cortices.

Innovative costume design within the framework of the folklore of the State of Iraq

This current research to the date of the start of the issue to the current version of clothes for girls from the Iraqi folk heritage in line with the values and customs of the community in addition to the possibility of designing costumes. Fashionable for girls at that stage Accordingly, (10) proposed designs of (8) models of the folklore costume of the State of Iraq were prepared to achieve the objectives of the research using the CLO 3D program, and the research followed the experimental and descriptive method. The proposed designs were presented to a group of specialized professors. and female consumers with the aim of evaluating them, through a questionnaire for specialists consisting of (23) phrases divided into four axes to know the extent to which each of (the characteristics of the Iraqi folklore according to the elements and foundations of design, the innovative and aesthetic side, the functional side have been achieved, The economic and marketing aspect), while the questionnaire for female consumers is composed of (10) phrases for the proposed designs. The results of the study indicated the success of using design elements inspired by the concepts of Iraqi folklore as a design source according to the limits of the study. Where the functional, innovative, aesthetic and marketing aspect of the proposed designs for girls was achieved, and the best-proposed designs were identified, which achieved the highest transactions according to the results of the study and the opinions of arbitrators and consumers.

Criminal legal and criminological analysis of offenses against sexual freedom and immunity in Ukraine: current state and prospects

The highest social values of any legal country are the protection of natural rights, which include life, health, dignity, freedom and inviolability of the person. Ukraine declared these rights as the basic ones in the Art. 3 and 29 of the Constitution. The number of criminal offenses is large enough and gradually increasing, but only a small number of them are really important for the life of the individual and the consequences of their actions remain until the end of the life of the victim. Such criminal offenses include articles that protect sexual freedom and immunity. Ukraine has been under martial law for 10 months, and during this period cases of sexual violent criminal offenses have taken place. The aim of the study is to analyze the statutes, declarations and conventions that should protect persons from the said criminal offenses. The study analyzed 1) the attitude of the ECHR to criminal offenses related to sexual freedom and immunity, and changes in legislation in connection with the ratification of international law; 2) conflicts and inconsistencies that exist in the law on criminal liability now and those that do not comply with international treaties that were ratified, for example, the new version of Art. 155 and 303 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine; 3) the latest changes in the legislation of Ukraine concerning Art. 156 “Child abuse for sexual purposes”of the Criminal Code of Ukraine; 4) data from the Office of the Prosecutor General of Ukraine on criminal offenses related to sexual freedom and immunity. As a result, it has been established that 40% of the analyzed difficulties do not end with the indictment in the court. There is a doubt about the determination of the same degree of social danger of rape (Art. 152 the Criminal Code of Ukraine) and sexual violence (Art. 154 the Criminal Code of Ukraine). The Art. 154 the Criminal Code of Ukraine concerning the difficulty of proving the criminal offense was analyzed, and a new version of this article was proposed. Diagrams with the data from the register of court decisions the correlation of indictments and court decisions on the recognition of persons guilty of the mentioned criminal offenses were created. The explanations of the Supreme Court concerning this category of cases were analyzed and presented. Finally, proposals were formulated to improve the current version of the criminal legislation of Ukraine.

Cross-Cultural Adaptation of the Scale of the Nursing Work Index With Nurses From Seven Countries

Background and Purpose:The aims of this study are as follows: to adapt and validate the psychometric properties of the Spanish version of the Practice Environment Scale of the Nursing Work Index (PES-NWI) adapted to the nursing home environment across seven Spanish-speaking countries and to cross-culturally adapt the Scale of the Nursing Work Index with nurses from seven countries.Methods:Adaptation process and psychometric validation of the instrument included translation and back-translation, content validity, test–retest reliability, internal consistency, and construct validity.Results:A total of 134 nursing homes belonging to the same religious order were randomly selected from seven Spanish-speaking countries with a sample of 378 nurses. The exploratory factor analysis explained a five-factor structure (56% of the explained variance) with adequate goodness-of-fit indices in the final factor solution.Conclusions:The validation process indicates that the Spanish language version of the PES-NWI with five factors and 31 items, for long-term care facilities for the elderly, is valid and reliable in its current version and can be used to measure the environment of nurses working in clinical practice in Spanish-speaking nursing homes.

VPBrowse: Genome-based representation of MS/MS spectra to quantify 10,000 bovine proteins.

SWATH is a data acquisition strategy acclaimed for generating quantitatively accurate and consistent measurements of proteins across multiple samples. Its utility for proteomics studies in nonlaboratory animals, however, is currently compromised by the lack of sufficiently comprehensive and reliable public libraries, either experimental or predicted, and relevant platforms that support their sharing and utilization in an intuitive manner. Here we describe the development of the Veterinary Proteome Browser, VPBrowse (http://browser.proteo.cloud/), an on-line platform for genome-based representation of the Bos taurus proteome, which is equipped with an interactive database and tools for searching, visualization, and building quantitative mass spectrometry assays. In its current version (VPBrowse 1.0), it contains high-quality fragmentation spectra acquired on QToF instrument for over 36,000 proteotypic peptides, the experimental evidence for over 10,000 proteins. Data can be downloaded in different formats to enable analysis using popular software packages for SWATH data processing whilst normalization to iRT scale ensures compatibility with diverse chromatography systems. When applied to published blood plasma dataset from the biomarker discovery study, the resource supported label-free quantification of additional proteins not reported by the authors previously including PSMA4, a tissue leakage protein and a promising candidate biomarker of animal's response to dehorning-related injury.

Assessing the Performance of Teachers of Students With Significant Disabilities: Establishing Content Validity for the TRAIT-SD

This study was conducted to collect validity evidence to support the use of an observation instrument to evaluate the performance of special education teachers (SETs) of students with significant disabilities (SWSD). In the study, a purposive sample of 49 SETs of SWSD, who were appropriately credentialed and experienced, evaluated the content of the Teacher Rating and Assessment Instrument for Teachers of Students with Significant Disabilities (TRAIT-SD) to determine each item’s importance for teaching SWSD. To do this, the participants were presented with the 37 items on the current version of the TRAIT-SD and asked to rate the importance of each using a 5-point Likert-type scale that ranged from very important to not important. They were also requested to provide narrative statements about the items and to recommend any relevant changes to the items, or recommend any new items they deemed to be missing from the current instrument. The results of the study showed that all participants, regardless of degree level, experience, or geographical location, rated all items between important and very important, resulting in all items being retained on the instrument. Additional comments resulted in a small number of items being reworded for clarity, and one new item being recommended for a subsequent version of the instrument.

MA'AT Analysis: Unbiased Multi-State Conformational Modeling of Exocyclic Hydroxymethyl Group Conformation in Methyl Aldohexopyranosides.

MA'AT analysis (J. Chem. Inf. Model. 2022, 62, 3135-3141) has been applied to model exocyclic hydroxymethyl group conformation in methyl β-D-glucopyranoside (βGlcOMe), methyl β-D-galactopyranoside (βGalOMe), and methyl β-D-mannopyranoside (βManOMe) in an unbiased manner. Using up to eight NMR J-couplings sensitive to rotation about the C5-C6 bond (torsion angle ω), two-state models of ω were obtained that are qualitatively consistent with the relative populations of the gg, gt, and tg rotamers reported previously. MA'AT analysis gave consistent unbiased gt ⇌ tg models of ω in βGalOMe, with gt more populated than tg and mean values of ω for each population similar to those obtained from aqueous 1-μs MD simulation. Using different combinations of J-couplings had little effect on the βGalOMe model in terms of the mean values of ω and circular standard deviations (CSDs). In contrast, MA'AT analysis of ω in βGlcOMe and βManOMe produced more than one two-state model independent of the ensemble of J-values used in the analyses. These models were characterized by gg ⇌ gt conformer exchange as expected, but the mean values of ω in both conformers varied significantly in the different fits, especially for the gg rotamer. Constrained (biased) MA'AT analyses in which only staggered geometries about ω were allowed gave RMSDs slightly larger than those obtained from the unbiased fits, precluding an assignment of an unbiased model. It is unclear why MA'AT analysis gives consistent and predictable unbiased models of ω in βGalOMe but not in βGlcOMe and βManOMe. One possibility is that the distribution of ω in one or both of the gg and gt conformers in the latter does not conform to a von Mises function (i.e., is not Gaussian-like), but rather to a broad and/or flat distribution that cannot be fit by the current version of MA'AT. Nevertheless, the results of this study provide new evidence of the ability of MA'AT analysis to treat multi-state conformational exchange using only experimental NMR data, extending recent MA'AT applications to furanosyl ring pseudorotation (Biochemistry 2022, 61, 239-251).

Psychometric evidence of the Acceptance and Action Questionnaire-II (AAQ-II): an item response theory analysis in university students from Chile

BackgroundExperiential avoidance (EA) is a psychological mechanism associated with several mental health disorders and is regarded as a relevant target by third-generation cognitive behavioral therapies. It has been mainly assessed through self-report questionnaires, and the AAQ-II is the most used tool. Its psychometric evidence has been mostly tested through the classical test theory (CTT) and very scarcely assessed through Item Response Theory (IRT).MethodsWe used the Graded Response Model to examine its psychometric properties in Spanish-speaking university students (n = 1503; women = 995 (66.2%), mean age = 19.29, SD = 2.45). We tested whether the empirical data fit the model’s predictions and estimated the dispersion of persons and items along the experiential avoidance continuum. Moreover, we examined category probability curves to identify the response probability of each answer. Likewise, an item-person map was made where the measurement of persons and items, both on the same scale and along the experiential avoidance continuum, could be observed jointly. Finally, we tested the gender invariance of the scale.ResultsWe found that the values of the individuals and the items were in the established range to be considered an adequate measure of EA. Additionally, we observed high discrimination indices for all items. The current version with seven answer options could not be optimal and should be tested in future studies. Finally, we found evidence of differential functioning by gender in one of the seven items of the instrument.ConclusionsOur results indicate that the AAQ-II is a suitable tool for measuring EA and accurately classifying and differentiating EA levels in university students.

BASECOL2023 scientific content

Context. The global context of making numerous data produced by researchers available requires collecting and organising the data, assigning meaningful metadata, and presenting the data in a meaningful and homogeneous way. The BASECOL database, which collects inelastic rate coefficients for application to the interstellar medium and to circumstellar and cometary atmospheres, meets those requirements. Aims. We aim to present the scientific content of the BASECOL2023 edition. Methods. While the previous versions relied on finding rate coefficients in the literature, the current version is populated with published results sent by the producers of data. The paper presents the database, the type of data that can be found, the type of metadata that are used, and the Virtual Atomic and Molecular Data Centre (VAMDC) standards that are used for the metadata. Finally, we present the different datasets species by species. Results. As the BASECOL database, interconnected with the VAMDC e-infrastructure, uses the VAMDC standards, the collisional data can be extracted with tools using VAMDC standards and can be associated with spectroscopic data extracted from other VAMDC connected databases such as the Cologne database for molecular spectroscopy (CDMS), the jet propulsion laboratory molecular spectroscopy database (JPL), and the high-resolution transmission molecular absorption database (HITRAN).

Intranasal Delivery of Perillyl Alcohol (NEO100) as a New Treatment Strategy for Glioma

Background: Perillyl alcohol (POH) is a naturally occurring monoterpene that is being developed as an intranasally delivered agent for the treatment of brain-localized malignancies. Clinical trials with glioma patients in Brazil have yielded preliminary evidence that this approach might be able to achieve therapeutic activity and result in prolonged survival of patients. Methods: NEO100, a highly pure, current good manufacturing practice-produced version of POH, is being evaluated in a Phase I/IIa clinical trial with recurrent glioblastoma patients in the United States. Patients self-administer POH/NEO100 as a mist with a nasal mask over the course of 15 minutes, four times a day, every day. Results: The treatment regimen is well tolerated, even if maintained over several years. It correlated with improved survival when compared to historical controls. Conclusion: There is human data demonstrating that this novel approach could become useful for the treatment of malignant glioma. Clinical Trial Registration Number:: NCT02704858

OPTIMA-BP: empOwering PaTients in MAnaging Blood Pressure – protocol for a randomised parallel group study comparing use of Kvatchii web-based patient education portal as an addition to home blood pressure monitoring

IntroductionHypertension is the leading modifiable risk factor for cardiovascular disease and is implicated in half of all strokes and myocardial infarctions. One-third of the adults in Scotland have hypertension yet...

Diabetes Technology in People with Type 2 Diabetes: Novel Indications.

Diabetes technology has been continuously evolving. Current versions of continuous glucose monitors (CGM) use minimally invasive designs, monitor glucose values with high accuracy, and can be used to guide insulin dosing. Extensive evidence supports the use of diabetes technology for monitoring and insulin administration in people with type 1 diabetes. However, there is emerging evidence for people with type 2 diabetes. In this review, we present the different technological devices used to monitor glucose and deliver insulin and the evidence supporting their use in people with type 2 diabetes. The use of CGMs in people with type 2 diabetes treated with insulin or non-insulin therapies has been associated with improvements in glycemic control and time spent in hypoglycemia. Smart insulin pens and smart connected devices are options to track compliance and guide insulin delivery in people who do not require insulin pump therapy. Mechanical patch pumps can be used to reduce the burden of multiple daily insulin injections. Automated insulin delivery algorithms improve glycemic control without an increase in hypoglycemia. The use of technology in the management of type 2 diabetes generates glycemic data previously inaccessible, reduces barriers for insulin initiation, improves glycemic control, tracks adherence to therapy, and improves user satisfaction.

A Comparative Analysis of the Rating of College Students’ Essays by ChatGPT versus Human Raters

The use of generative artificial intelligence (AI) in education has engendered mixed reactions due to its ability to generate human-like responses to questions. For education to benefit from this modern technology, there is a need to determine how such capability can be used to improve teaching and learning. Hence, using a comparative−descriptive research design, this study aimed to perform a comparative analysis between Chat Generative Pre-Trained Transformer (ChatGPT) version 3.5 and human raters in scoring students’ essays. Twenty essays were used of college students in a professional education course at the Mindanao State University – Tawi-Tawi College of Technology and Oceanography, a public university in southern Philippines. The essays were rated independently by three human raters using a scoring rubric from Carrol and West (1989) as adapted by Tuyen et al. (2019). For the AI ratings, the essays were encoded and inputted into ChatGPT 3.5 using prompts and the rubric. The responses were then screenshotted and recorded along with the human ratings for statistical analysis. Using the intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC), results show that among the human raters, the consistency was good, indicating the reliability of the rubric, while a moderate consistency was found in the ChatGPT 3.5 ratings. Comparison of the human and ChatGPT 3.5 ratings show poor consistency, implying the that the ratings of human raters and ChatGPT 3.5 were not linearly related. The finding implies that teachers should be cautious when using ChatGPT in rating students’ written works, suggesting further that using ChatGPT 3.5, in its current version, still needs human assistance to ensure the accuracy of its generated information. Rating of other types of student works using ChatGPT 3.5 or other generative AI tools may be investigated in future research.

Enhancing time series aggregation for power system optimization models: Incorporating network and ramping constraints

In this paper, we extend a recently developed Basis-Oriented time series aggregation approach for aggregating input-data in power system optimization models which has proven to be exact in simple economic dispatch problems. We extend this methodology to include network and ramping constraints, for the latter, to handle temporal linking, we developed a heuristic that, in its current version, relies on the dual solution to find a partition of the input data, which is then aggregated. Our numerical results, for a 3-bus system, show that with network constraints only, we reduced the number of hours needed for an exact approximation by a factor of 1747, and a factor of 12 with network and ramping constraints. Moreover, our findings suggest that in the presence of temporal linking, aggregations of variable length must be employed to obtain an exact result (i.e., the same objective function value in the aggregated model) while maintaining the computational tractability. Our findings also imply that better performing aggregations do not necessarily correspond to commonly used lengths like days or weeks; additionally, we also prove that this input-data partition, based on the dual information, is always possible for these models independent of their size.

Passenger Air Taxi Services: An Assessment of the Current European Union Rules on Consumer Protection for Passengers

The Paris Olympics and Paralympics are scheduled to take place between 26 July and 8 September 2024, whereby electric vertical take-off and landing aircraft are anticipated to take to the skies to offer a new mobility solution to spectators of the Games. This will allow paying members of the public to move between different points within the Paris region akin to an on-demand taxi service, but through the air; passenger air taxi services (PATS). These passengers, as consumers, will have certain rights and duties under European Union law. To determine the level of protection afforded to these air passengers, a full assessment of Regulation (EC) No 261/2004 is required. As the revision of the Regulation is currently on the European Commission’s agenda, it is also important to consider its revision in light of PATS, whereby new technology, emerging business practices, changing customer behaviour and societal expectations for the level of legal protection of PATS users must be considered. This article will, therefore, assess the current version of the Regulation, in light of the interpretation from the European Court, to see whether it applies to PATS and, if so, whether it is suitable or if specific amendments need to be added to the planned revised Regulation.

Sustainable development strategy for historic neighborhood shrinkage: taking Puhuiquan neighborhood in Yulin, China, as an example

Western cities have been confronted with the challenges of 'urban shrinkage' as changes in economic and production models have caused population migrations. China, in its recent history, has experienced rapid and dynamic growth in its cities. However, as its economy is evolving, it too is being confronted with 'urban shrinkage' challenges. Populations have been shifting inside small and medium sized cities in response to problems created during this rapid growth period. Most heritage areas have suffered from depopulation, neglect and disinvestment. The historic Puhuiquan neighborhood in Yulin City is a classic example of the current Chinese version of 'urban shrinkage'. Yulin City, founded as a military city five centuries ago, has shifted its focus away from its historic purpose into a resource-based city. Yulin’s planning developed new areas, drawing population out of the historic Puhuiquan neighborhood. This area is the home to a unique urban cultural landscape where land and architecture have merged to create the development of various types of 'cave' houses. Suffering from the effects of 'urban shrinkage', this research explores the causes and potential solutions for the area employing both 'smart shrinkage' and 'urban renewal' strategies, informed by local resident participation, to develop a sustainable renewal strategy for this heritage area.

Overcoming conceptual hurdles to accurately represent trees as cohorts in forest landscape models

Forecasting the response of vegetation to climate change and human actions at global to landscape scales often relies on system models. Many such models represent the composition and demography of vegetation using age class cohorts of species or vegetation types. Forest landscape models (FLM) simulate spatially explicit forest dynamics in response to disturbance and abiotic drivers and constraints at landscape spatial and temporal scales (105 – 108 ha, hundreds of years), and many represent trees as species-age cohorts on a grid of cells to make the model tractable at landscape scales. However, it has become evident that complications arise when calculating cell-level summaries involving multiple cohorts because one cannot assume that all cohorts simultaneously occupy the entire physical space of a cell. A fundamental assumption of a widely used FLM (LANDIS-II) is that cohorts are homogeneously distributed across the grid cells that they occupy. It is only implicitly assumed that the stems (trunks) and crowns (foliage) of the individual trees that make up the cohorts physically occupy some proportion of the cell's area with a non-clustered distribution, but the model does not track those proportions. In reality, when cohort biomass is reduced by disturbance or turnover (self-thinning), gaps are created that are at least temporarily unoccupied. In current versions of LANDIS-II, such gaps are ignored. We describe a new approach for cohort-based FLMs to estimate those proportions (including open space) and apply them to compute more realistic estimates of light attenuation and cell-level estimates of cohort and total cell biomass. This approach accounts for gap dynamics in a FLM where stems are not explicitly modeled, allowing cohorts to partially fill cells. These improvements allow more accurate simulation of forest “gap” dynamics in cohort-based landscape models to produce more accurate absolute biomass estimates at species, cell and landscape scales.

Историческая память как категория конституционного права

Introduction. Historical memory is an integral part of national identity and defines the core values and principles of life in society. Legal norms in the text of the Constitution of Russia that consolidate the concept of historical development of the Russian state and establish new obligations of the state to honor the memory of defenders of the Fatherland, to ensure the protection of historical truth and to prevent belittling the significance of the people’s feat in defense of the Fatherland allow us to talk about the formation of a new category in the constitutional law – the category of historical memory. Theoretical analysis. General theoretical understanding of legal categories allows us to highlight such features as abstraction, universality, generality, objectivity, content, consistency. All these qualities are inherent in constitutional categories; their features also include a high degree of axiology and fundamental character, which, due to the properties of the Constitution as a basic political and legal act, define the relationship between the state, an individual and society as a whole. Empirical analysis. The analysis of the formation of national memory in pre-revolutionary and Soviet periods shows that the concept of historical memory was commonly ideological in nature. The concept of national history was absent in Constitution of the Russian Federation, adopted on December 12, 1993. The 2020 Amendments to the Constitution were also intended to correct this gap and include provisions aimed at creating the concept of historical memory Results. The concept of historical memory, as it is presented in the current version of the Constitution, is aimed at: establishing the idea of continuity in the development of the Russian state; justification for unity of the state, formed as a result of a thousand-year history; conditionality of spiritual and moral values by tradition; indication of the special role of the state in protecting historical memory.

Portuguese Validation of the TAPQoL: A Health-Related Quality of Life Instrument for Children Aged 0-6 Years.

In Portugal, there are few generic and specific instruments to assess health-related quality of life (HRQoL) in children, especially those of preschool age. This study aimed to adapt and validate the Portuguese version of the Preschool Children Quality of Life Questionnaire (TAPQoL) in a community and clinical sample of children aged 0-6 years. The parents of 409 healthy children and 137 children undergoing treatment for burns and acute lymphoblastic leukemia completed the TAPQoL and were assessed on psychological morbidity and family functioning. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses were performed, as well as analysis of the psychometric properties as shown by internal consistency measures, convergent validity, and average variance extracted. Confirmatory factor analysis confirmed an 11-factor structure with good psychometric properties. The current version of the TAPQoL is a valid and reliable instrument for assessing HRQoL in Portuguese preschool children in community and clinical settings.

Designing a Tool to Support Online Physical Education

This design case details a seven-year iterative design process to create an app for use in online physical education classes. Each iteration addresses the shortcomings of the previous version. The most recent iteration of the app allows students to use Fitbit™ devices to record heart rate data, which each student sees as progress toward course goals on the homepage of the course. The current version of the app has evolved to provide a seamless student experience using a web application programming interface (API) and data standards such as learning tools interoperability (LTI). The student experience of using the app is thoroughly documented, as are design processes and principles for engaging in similar design processes.