Effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on the use and perceptions of urban green space: An international exploratory study.

Urban green space (UGS) is an essential element in the urban environment, providing multiple ecosystem services as well as beneficial effects on physical and mental health. In a time of societal crisis these effects may be amplified, but ensuring that they are maintained requires effective planning and management - which is a complex challenge given the rapid changes in modern society and the need for continual adaptation. This study aims to identify the drivers that normally attract visitors to UGS, and to assess the effects of social isolation on the usage and perception of UGS during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Is apparent fixational drift in eye-tracking data due to filters or eyeball rotation?

Eye trackers are sometimes used to study the miniature eye movements such as drift that occur while observers fixate a static location on a screen. Specifically, analysis of such eye-tracking data can be performed by examining the temporal spectrum composition of the recorded gaze position signal, allowing to assess its color. However, not only rotations of the eyeball but also filters in the eye tracker may affect the signal's spectral color.

Characterizing gaze position signals and synthesizing noise during fixations in eye-tracking data.

The magnitude of variation in the gaze position signals recorded by an eye tracker, also known as its precision, is an important aspect of an eye tracker's data quality. However, data quality of eye-tracking signals is still poorly understood. In this paper, we therefore investigate the following: (1) How do the various available measures characterizing eye-tracking data during fixation relate to each other? (2) How are they influenced by signal type? (3) What type of noise should be used to augment eye-tracking data when evaluating eye-movement analysis methods? To support our analysis, this paper presents new measures to characterize signal type and signal magnitude based on RMS-S2S and STD, two established measures of precision.

The effect of antifungal extracts on the contamination of grain with microfungi.

The study aimed to analyze the effects of extracts made from buckwheat grain, hulls, and bee products (propolis, bread, and pollen) and extraction solvents on the growth of microfungi on a medium and on buckwheat, wheat, oat, and maize grain. Research findings suggest that bioactive compounds contained in buckwheat grain reduced the amount of spp. in the grain kept in the antifungal extract for 90 min at 25°C temperature.

Composition of Sugars in Wild and Cultivated Lingonberries ( L.).

Products of lingonberries are widely used in the human diet; they are also promising beauty and health therapeutic candidates in the cosmetic and pharmaceutical industries. It is important to examine the sugar profile of these berries, due to potential deleterious health effects resulting from high sugar consumption. The aim of this study was to determine the composition of sugars in wild clones and cultivars or lower taxa of lingonberries by HPLC-ELSD method of analysis.

Self-Evaluation Dimensions of Criminal Activity and Prospects Simulation of Persons Serving Custodial Sentence.

The article presents the self-evaluation indicators of the causes of criminal behavior committed by persons serving a custodial sentence at X institution, focusing on imprisonment and modeling of life prospects after release from prison. The main idea of the study is to reveal the subjective self-evaluation experience of persons serving custodial sentence with regard to criminal activity and simulation of future prospects. The scientific discussion of the article presents incarcerated persons' (N = 58) subjective self-evaluation data collected during the qualitative research and their theoretical-practical interpretation.

Antioxidant Activities of L. Leaves within Cultivars and Their Phenolic Compounds.

Lingonberry leaves are the subject of numerous studies because of antioxidant properties, positive influence on the health and potential use in the prevention and treatment of chronic diseases. In this work, the radical scavenging, reducing, chelating activities, and phenolic composition of ten lingonberry leaves cultivars, one subspecies, and one variety were investigated. Furthermore, the antioxidant activity of individual phenolic compounds, that can be found in lingonberry leaves, were analyzed, and structure-activity relationship was determined.

gazeNet: End-to-end eye-movement event detection with deep neural networks.

Existing event detection algorithms for eye-movement data almost exclusively rely on thresholding one or more hand-crafted signal features, each computed from the stream of raw gaze data. Moreover, this thresholding is largely left for the end user. Here we present and develop gazeNet, a new framework for creating event detectors that do not require hand-crafted signal features or signal thresholding.

Correction to: "Using machine learning to detect events in eye-tracking data".

It has come to our attention that the section "Post-processing: Labeling final events" on page 167 of "Using Machine Learning to Detect Events in Eye-Tracking Data" (Zemblys, Niehorster, Komogortsev, & Holmqvist, 2018) contains an erroneous description of the process by which post-processing was performed.

Connection between organizational culture and climate and empowerment: The perspective of nurse managers.

Health-care organizations differ from other institutions due to their unique structure and management. Organizational culture and climate are the key constructs that compose the organizational social context, and might have an impact on employees, such as nurse managers, and the organization itself. The aim of this study was to analyze the connections between organizational culture and climate and work-related empowerment, and also to present culture and climate profiles at team and organization levels.

Phytochemical Profiles of Alpine Plant Horminum pyrenaicum L. during Phenological Growth Stages.

Horminum pyrenaicum L. is a medicinal, aromatic and ornamental plant native to the Pyrenees and Alps. The phytochemical composition is affected by various ecological factors, climatic conditions and cultivating factors, and especially phenological growth stages.

The challenges and opportunities of climate change policy under different stages of economic development.

Climate change policy confronts with many challenges and opportunities. Thus the aim of this study was to analyse the impact of gross domestic product (hereinafter GDP), trade, foreign direct investment (hereinafter FDI), energy efficiency (hereinafter EF) and renewable energy (hereinafter RE) consumption on greenhouse gas (hereinafter GHG) emissions in 1990-2013 and reveal the main challenges and opportunities of climate policy for which policy makers should take the most attention under different stages of economic development. The results showed that the economic growth significantly contributed to the increase of GHG emissions and remains the main challenge in all groups of countries.

The prevalence of deoxynivalenol and its derivatives in the spring wheat grain from different agricultural production systems in Lithuania.

Deoxynivalenol (DON) together with two acetylated derivatives, 3-acetyldeoxynivalenol (3-ADON) and 15-acetyldeoxynivalenol (15-ADON) occurs in cereal grains and their products. Co-occurrence of DON and acetylated derivatives in cereal grain is detected worldwide. Until now, DON and its derivatives have been considered equally toxic by health authorities.

A statistical model for predicting the inter-annual variability of birch pollen abundance in Northern and North-Eastern Europe.

The paper suggests a methodology for predicting next-year seasonal pollen index (SPI, a sum of daily-mean pollen concentrations) over large regions and demonstrates its performance for birch in Northern and North-Eastern Europe. A statistical model is constructed using meteorological, geophysical and biological characteristics of the previous year). A cluster analysis of multi-annual data of European Aeroallergen Network (EAN) revealed several large regions in Europe, where the observed SPI exhibits similar patterns of the multi-annual variability.

Spatial and temporal variations in airborne pollen in Europe.

The European Commission Cooperation in Science and Technology (COST) Action FA1203 "SMARTER" aims to make recommendations for the sustainable management of across Europe and for monitoring its efficiency and cost-effectiveness. The goal of the present study is to provide a baseline for spatial and temporal variations in airborne pollen in Europe that can be used for the management and evaluation of this noxious plant. The study covers the full range of L.

Using machine learning to detect events in eye-tracking data.

Event detection is a challenging stage in eye movement data analysis. A major drawback of current event detection methods is that parameters have to be adjusted based on eye movement data quality. Here we show that a fully automated classification of raw gaze samples as belonging to fixations, saccades, or other oculomotor events can be achieved using a machine-learning approach.

Phenological research of climate changes in the north part of Lithuania by the phenological garden of Šiauliai University.

Šiauliai University Botanical Garden is a member of the International Phenological Garden network since 2005. It is the only one botanical garden in the East Europe that participated in the programme. In 2015, 18 species were observed.

Immuno-modulating properties of saliphenylhalamide, SNS-032, obatoclax, and gemcitabine.

Influenza A viruses (IAVs) impact the public health and global economy by causing yearly epidemics and occasional pandemics. Several anti-IAV drugs are available and many are in development. However, the question remains which of these antiviral agents may allow activation of immune responses and protect patients against co- and re-infections.

Genetic Loci Associated with Allergic Sensitization in Lithuanians.

Allergic rhinitis (AR) is a common and complex disease. It is associated with environmental as well as genetic factors. Three recent genome-wide association studies (GWAS) reported altogether 47 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) associated with AR or allergic sensitization (AS) in Europeans and North Americans.

Variation of the group 5 grass pollen allergen content of airborne pollen in relation to geographic location and time in season.

Background: Allergies to grass pollen are the number one cause of outdoor hay fever. The human immune system reacts with symptoms to allergen from pollen.

Objective: We investigated the natural variability in release of the major group 5 allergen from grass pollen across Europe.

Self-reported cannabis products and other illicit drugs consumption in older school-age children in Northern Lithuania: a comparison between 2006 and 2012.

Background And Objective: Cannabis use is widespread among young people in Europe. The aim of this study was to analyze and to compare the associations between the self-reported consumption of cannabis products and other illicit drugs among older schoolchildren in 2006 and in 2012.

Materials And Methods: Two cross-sectional surveys were conducted in 2006 and 2012 in Northern Lithuania.

Akt inhibitor MK2206 prevents influenza pH1N1 virus infection in vitro.

The influenza pH1N1 virus caused a global flu pandemic in 2009 and continues manifestation as a seasonal virus. Better understanding of the virus-host cell interaction could result in development of better prevention and treatment options. Here we show that the Akt inhibitor MK2206 blocks influenza pH1N1 virus infection in vitro.

Tracking in atomic detail the functional specializations in viral RecA helicases that occur during evolution.

Many complex viruses package their genomes into empty protein shells and bacteriophages of the Cystoviridae family provide some of the simplest models for this. The cystoviral hexameric NTPase, P4, uses chemical energy to translocate single-stranded RNA genomic precursors into the procapsid. We previously dissected the mechanism of RNA translocation for one such phage, 12, and have now investigated three further highly divergent, cystoviral P4 NTPases (from 6, 8 and 13).